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Utilizing this digital window to share my understanding of the funder and founder relationships and….
several other things that intrigue me!

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News, Opinion

Amid all the din surrounding the Wizard of Omaha’s endorsement of Paytm's pole position in the Indian Paymentech space, an endorsement which must be the proudest moment for any entrepreneur, but the day belonged to another Indian. This is the

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Amid all the din surrounding the Wizard of Omaha’s endorsement of Paytm’s pole position in the Indian Paymentech space, an endorsement which must be the proudest moment for any entrepreneur, but the day belonged to another Indian. This is the story of an Indian runner who has (reportedly) never won a gold in any national level race. He was considered the rank outsider in the 800m finals of the ongoing Asian Games in Indonesia, in fact, he was the second best Indian in the final. But what happened over the next 2 minutes is going to be remembered for a very long time.

Manjit Singh who hails from Haryana, came from nowhere to win the gold medal for India and pipped India’s best runner, Jinson Johnson to 2nd place. This gave India a very rare 1-2 finish at the Asian games. I could not find a better video of the proud athletes accepting their medals draped in the tricolour but it so rare a moment that even the poor quality video cannot take away its sheen.
Jai ho Manjit Singh & Jinson Johnson!!!

73/2018

Entrepreneurship, Learning, News, Opinion, Technology

The fiasco around taking Tesla private has dwindled Elon Musk's credibility, making it hard to believe anything that comes out of his mouth. This brilliant piece of journalism aptly titled “Private' mess: Elon Musk's credibility goes from bad to worse” explains why

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The fiasco around taking Tesla private has dwindled Elon Musk’s credibility, making it hard to believe anything that comes out of his mouth. This brilliant piece of journalism aptly titled “Private’ mess: Elon Musk’s credibility goes from bad to worse” explains why this badly handled episode in Musk’s history can be considered a harbinger of worse things to come.
In fact, it is an important lesson for any founder who makes public statements of bravado in the pitching room or to the media- only promise what you can deliver because once that promise has left your mouth
 it cannot be taken back.

and by the way Mr Musk, I want my $1000 deposit on the Model 3 back!!!
71/2018

News, Opinion

A heated political debate has been brewing between two accomplished lawyers, namely the last two finance ministers of India, P Chidambaram and Arun Jaitley. The debate began on the backdrop of the data released by the National Statistical Commission which stated that the GDP growth rate under the UPA was higher than the current GDP growth under the NDA government.   Of the various arguments

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A heated political debate has been brewing between two accomplished lawyers, namely the last two finance ministers of India, P Chidambaram and Arun Jaitley. The debate began on the backdrop of the data released by the National Statistical Commission which stated that the GDP growth rate under the UPA was higher than the current GDP growth under the NDA government.  
Of the various arguments that have been put forth by different parties of the political spectrum, I  resonate most with the arguments put forth by ET’s Saubhik Chakrabarti in the article “UPA vs NDA: Why higher growth doesn’t matter when followed by policy delinquency“.  
I believe that a lot of economic numbers achieved by UPA were because of the stable platform handed over by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government and the steroid (read: debt) fuelled hyper-growth of the worlds’ economy. The mirage of the strong economic power-house created by the UPA between 2004 and 2010 was blown away by the huff & puff of a crumbling world economy.   
UPA entrusted PM Modi with a country that was in turmoil: banks saddled with massive NPAs, high inflation, policy paralysis, low growth numbers, tax terrorism that was driving away FDI, Government-run SEBs that were out of money, runaway spending on thoughtless welfare schemes and most dangerously a demoralised & disillusioned class of entrepreneurs that had been maltreated by the government. UPA’s policies & constant infighting stifled any hope of supporting growth and innovation.  
I find myself sympathising with the Modi-led government because it braved strong headwinds in the global economy, maintained fiscal prudence and smartly bailed out the banking, power and manufacturing sectors from the brink of collapse, to bring India to the position of the world’s fastest-growing major economy. 
I believe that my contradicting views of the two governments are best represented by the contradicting mindset that I woke up with in these two time periods. When I woke up under the watchful eyes of the UPA government, I constantly felt that the worst was yet to come, however when I woke up today to write this post at 4 am, I was certain that the best our economy has to offer – has just begun!  
66/2018

Learning, News, Opinion

Child rape is a heinous crime and shockingly our society has been unable to curb it. In light of the Asifa case, the issue has been politicized so much that we have lost sight of the core issue and failed

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Child rape is a heinous crime and shockingly our society has been unable to curb it. In light of the Asifa case, the issue has been politicized so much that we have lost sight of the core issue and failed to take any action against the perpetrators. In the midst of this blame game, I was unable to form an opinion on the right course of action until I watched this video clip that I received from a friend via WhatsApp. In this video, a 28-year-old activist took on the spokespeople of multiple political parties and had them squirming in their seats unable to answer her simple arguments sans the political brouhaha.
I wish that Arnab would have shut up and let the woman speak but I think that would be asking for too much

The woman in this video is Trisha Shetty, is the founder of SheSays, an NGO that Forbes describes as “an Indian non-profit that empowers the country’s women to act against sexual violence by providing education, legal, medical as well as psychological support.”
I absolutely commend Trisha for putting forth such a bold and unrestrained argument. In her two-minute monologue, she pointed out what these seasoned politicians have been avoiding for years i.e. removing the people in your party that have been accused or are accused of sheltering & defending those that were accused of a heinous crime like child rape. As many other Indians will, I strongly resonate with her argument. The accused people should be removed from office until proven innocent and be barred from holding positions of power if found sheltering the accused. None of them are above the law and shouldn’t be allowed to act as if they are.
Any elected official that believes that his or her views on this topic are being smothered by the louder & more powerful voices in their party, should have the guts to leave that party. We did not elect our representatives to follow the orders of a few, but to speak up and defend our rights, act on and resolve our complaints and protect our right basic right to have a respectable and secure life for ourselves and our children.
44/2018

Artha, Entrepreneurship, News, Opinion, Technology, Travel

Uber is free for you if you pay via the Uber wallet (T&C: 5 FREE rides up to Rs. 300 per ride). This is of course a great way to increase wallet usage (something which Ola has cracked very well), though

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Uber is free for you if you pay via the Uber wallet (T&C: 5 FREE rides up to Rs. 300 per ride).
This is of course a great way to increase wallet usage (something which Ola has cracked very well), though such ‘predatory pricing’ activities are bound to attract wrath from the auto and taxi industry.
From an earlier comment by Anirudh Damani (Managing Partner at Artha Venture Partners) :
My family is an investor into a taxi booking company so let me be clear that we follow this space closely and we may or may not see higher values for the investment but what I have seen in this space in the last 6 months is disrupting the lives of many taxi drivers and fleet owners.
Here are the major issues I see:
1. These cab companies are selling below cost
 this is obvious when you take account of the recent strikes that hordes of drivers of the taxi-booking companies went on strike as they were out of fuel! They get the subsidized amount from the customer which is not enough to put fuel into the car and the “credit” or difference comes a week later. Are they supposed to physically push the car until then?
We invested in this space as booking a taxi simply by a click makes things easier for the riders and gives incremental revenue to the driver which they didn’t have earlier. It is a pure win-win and net positive for society.
“We will organize this unorganized market” – That is what the pitches used to say…
But right now, we have companies that are selling at unsustainable prices which will drive out all small players and leave the industry in the hands of a few.. this is exactly the opposite of what should be achieved.
This era of free money will come to an end.. and we will be left poorer as a society especially a cab driver who right now is making spending decisions and investment decisions that he/she will not be able to complete.
Isn’t this what happened in the housing boom with free money and no controls? Will we ever learn?
2. Rules are being flouted by unlicensed players that have scant regard for any of the laws in the country
 what is very interesting (and sickening) is that it is our own local companies that are flouting the laws relating to taxation, KYC, labour, etc.
In the name of adding supply some of them are paying off taxi drivers through pre-paid cards that are registered in the name of the company and not in the name of the user – is this what we want to call “fair” competition? Is this even legal?
When foreign money is being doled out without KYC and without any trace on the money.. what stops that from being used for means that are anti-social?
What happens when the ED. IT, FEMA, FERA, EOW, Service Tax authorities catch hold of these erring companies and shut the show?
What if it is too late by then?
The show is on right now.. and it’s all beautiful.
Once the song stops.. you will see that we have destroyed whatever semblance of sanity there was in this space.”
Good for consumers. But what about the industry?
Are parts becoming greater than the sum? Think about it while you enjoy the ride.
(Article published by NextBigWhat on 27/11/2014, containing excerpts from a comment I left on a previously published article on the same platform titled The Big Battle Between Funded Taxi Startups And The Rest.)
News, Opinion

Before I open up with my views on this highly controversial topic, I must tell you that I grappled with the thought of writing this article for the last 24 hours. My intention here is not to indulge in any

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Before I open up with my views on this highly controversial topic, I must tell you that I grappled with the thought of writing this article for the last 24 hours. My intention here is not to indulge in any jingoism or chest thumping. I am torn apart with this topic and it my intention here to just vent out my thoughts and ask the readers to really think about how we can play our part in shaking up the annals of the government wherein the last gasp of a soldier’s breath is not terrifying enough.   index   The picture above is of BSF Constable Sanjay Dhar from the 192 Battalion who was martyred on July 16th in the Arnia subsector along the India-Pakistan border in Jammu & Kashmir. Reports state that this is the second ceasefire violation since in this week and the third in July by Pakistan. It should also be noted that Late Constable Dhar, four BSF jawans and four civilians were also injured in the firing across the borderand . According to the BSF website this is is the 2ndBSF casualty at the border this year. (Surprisingly the BSF website is yet to update the martyr list or offer condolences on its website to their fallen comrade while UP BJP has –that is just a minor observation) Do you know how the brave men and women of our armed forces are taken to their final resting place? What is the protocol for bidding a final goodbye to those that lay down their lives protecting our nation’s border? I visited the BSF website and the Indian Army to find out the procedure for paying the last respects to Constable Dhar but I was unable to find anything specific. After a lot of effort I finally chanced upon this link which lays out the procedure for a military funeral in this land we call India. (This link was found by Google eventhough the webpage is hosted on the Indian Army website.) During the search I came across a lot of articles, posts, videos that were heart breaking if not gut wrenching. Statistics like 3,987 soldiers had been killed in action from the end of the Kargil conflict in 1999 upto 2012, over 100 soldiers commit suicide each year. In comparison, USA which is actually fighting a war in the hostile territories of Iraq and Afghanistan had lost 6,802 soldiers. The intention here isn’t to talk about how much better the kill ratio is for the US troops but it is definitely to talk about the value the American public has placed on the people that die fighting for their country outside their view and on foreign lands and how little we place on our own soldiers that are actually dying protecting our own borders and our right to lead a life of freedom. Why isn’t the media getting angry about the slaying of Indian soldiers including brutal mutilations (beheadings, castrations, etc)? Why hasn’t the PM or the Defense Minister made a statement to the nation about the destruction of yet another Indian family (does the media even care about the devastated family that Constable Dhar’s untimely death has left behind?) I find it truly disgusting that we have taken the price of an Indian soldier’s life as being worth nothing at all, there is no statement from the MLA or MP of Constable Dhar’s constituency about taking up the case of Constable Dhar to Defence Minister Arun Jaitley’s office. So is Constable Dhar going to be cremated and forgotten in the ever burgeoning scrapbook of soldiers that are Killed-In-Action? It is my fervent request that each person that reads this post.

  1. Send a letter to their local MP to take up the case of this slaying in their sphere of influences
  2. Ask the Pakistani government to apologise for this death and if they cannot
  3. Then order the ARMY to STOPTHIS FLAG MEETING BULLSHIT.

If the Pakistani army cannot stop firing across the LoC, we have no reason to keep talking to them. THIS IDIOPLAMACY OF MEETING THE ENEMY THAT IS ACTIVELY MARTYRING OUR INDIAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS IS ABSOLUTE RUBBISH. It is a well known fact that Indian soldiers protected 93,000 Pakistani soldiers at the end of the 1971 war from being butchered in Bangladesh by the seething public that was seeking revenge for the atrocities that were meted out to them by the Pakistani soldiers. But now that same country is actively supporting militancy in our country, killing our soldiers and we are more concerned about playing cricket with them? We are meeting with them over flag meetings and “asking” them to stop killing our soldiers? I still salute and stand behind the PM Vajpayee’s decision to send the troops to the Indo-Pak border and sending then (and current) Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif to face the real fear of war with the 3rd largest army in the world and twice the size of Pakistan’s army.The Pakistani PM at that time realized that messing with the Indian elephant will lead to total destruction. However the last 10 years of “idioplamacy” (idiot diplomacy) is a demotivation for our troops and such daily deaths still cannot be taken lightly and forgotten. But this voice cannot reach the Parliament until each one of us does our bit in contacting our MP and asking them to raise their voice against the horrifying statistic of one Indian soldier’s family wailing for the loss of their brave soul – DAILY.   I am going to write to my MP on Monday
 I want to suggest that you do the same by finding out the address and writing a letter requesting them to bring this up for discussion in the floor of the house and getting a reply in a timely manner. The contact details for our MP can be found here at www.NoCorruption.in. These men are putting their lives in danger each day, it is time we take out a few minutes of our time for them. “The value of life can be measured by how many times your soul has been deeply stirred” – Soichiro Honda

Artha, News, Opinion

A perfect storm for electricity consumers that was created by the policy paralysis of UPA-II, high interest rates and the slow pace of development of power plants as developers faced innumerable headaches and delays in securing 143 licenses and filing

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A perfect storm for electricity consumers that was created by the policy paralysis of UPA-II, high interest rates and the slow pace of development of power plants as developers faced innumerable headaches and delays in securing 143 licenses and filing 1982 compliance reports. This storm will reach devastating strength as the states of Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka have decided to raise power tariffs by 10 to 35 percent!
The problems in India’s critical power sector have been simmering below the surface for a very long time and the burgeoning Indian population with its increasing usage of technology – from using smartphones to rural electrification schemes that has increased power consumption from 443 kwh per capita in 2004 to 684 kwh per capita in 2011 as per the data compiled by the World Bank.
The problems being faced by the Indian power sector are too many to list out in a single blog post but as a power consumer we should all beware that such large hikes in tariffs are going to be the norm moving forward – unless the government makes some serious and immediate changes to its power policy. If the government is serious about giving world class power infrastructure for supporting the needs of residential and commercial customers, it first has to ensure that setting up a power project is a pain free and an under-table ridden process.
The government should also seriously give a thought to replacing the defunct and often misused depreciation and subsidy based schemes and give power plant developers access to easy, low-cost and long-term debt. Climate Policy Initiative studied the impact high interest costs have on power tariffs, noting that unfavourable debt terms add as much as 32% to the cost of renewable power from wind energy alone! One can only imagine what an impact the adoption of business friendly policies would have on procurement cost of other sources of power. The same report also mentions that access to cheaper debt can reduce the subsidy burden of state and central governments by upto a whopping 78% just for wind power alone!
So while highly recommending power consumers to urge their local representatives in the power corridors (pun not intended) of Delhi to give the neglected power producers the support they need, I also recommend that the power consumers who have an empty roof-top, should look at sourcing their power from distributive solar power generation systems. These systems can provide the consumer access to long term solar power at an affordable and sustainable tariff while giving them valuable ‘day-time’ power – a time when most power distribution companies face tremendous power shortages.
More on that soon


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