ExpertDabbler

Periyorgale Thaimargale,

The last few weeks have been ratha kalari at work. That explains my absence from blogosphere.

A quick update from my end, due to force of circumstances stylishly referred to as ‘kaalathin kattayam’ by RMV, I might land up in the west coast of US of A by this month end. I can hear some folks say ‘Enna kodumai saravanan idhu’, Even i could not resist that either

Coming to the fact of the matter, those of you living in and around bay area, if you happen to watch a shabby looking unpolished, unkempt tamilian on the roads in the next few weeks, just stop by and say hi

Other seasoned NRI folks, who are past masters at what to bring (for a hardcore south indian vegetarian) and what not to bring for a business trip, please send your ideas, tips and tricks to my mail ID.

US blogosphere makkals who would not mind vetti mokkai with an idiot in the next few months, please send your phone numbers to my mail (prabukarthik at google dot com).

Stay tuned…

Idea #6 - Another telephone idea

I believe there are two types of calls :

Emergency calls, and
Mokkai calls.

I still wonder why our telephone companies cannot differentiate the two entirely different needs of the users and service them accordingly.

I hear someone ask why use telephone for mokkai and occupy network bandwidth?

In a city like chennai, meeting each and every friend often is next to impossible. We rely on the mobile/landline to stay in touch with our friends, parents and sometimes even spouse(s).

I dont mind paying for the emergency, important calls that I make.

But for the mokkai, I should have a choice to either pay from my pocket (not recommended) or endure some targetted ads and those in turn will pay for my calls (highly recommended).

So, before i dial a number for mokkai session, if i press *420, I should be able to listen to ads and those ads will pay me for the next 10 minutes of outgoing call. The less noise and more realistic it is, the better it works.

Also, if i do get an incoming call from a subscriber who chooses to pay for the call, that should take precedence over my mokkai session by default. This means the important calls always goes through and we dont get to hear, “The subscriber is busy” message.

The telephone companies will have all the details of at least their post paid subscribers anyway.
They can use technology to funnel ads which are likely to have maximum impact and relevance. The more contextual, the better too (I dont have anything to do with ‘Pothys’ Aadi thallubadi’ offer usually)

Benefits,

1. This opens up new revenue streams for the telephone companies.
2. The user (and sometimes the user’s boy friend) will have lower monthly phone bills and consequently lower BP.

Last heard Google’s GPhone project has similiar ideas but from whatever i’ve read, it looks like Google is either creating or buying real estate for their text ads. A phone is a phone. And I do not see it working if google is restricting itself to text ads.

Idea #5

Time and again, our governments will hear cries from the industry on the need to build better roads. Our politicans will launch project with great fan fares. New slogans will surface for e.g ‘Eversilver Parallelogram’
(idhukunne room pottu yosipangalo?? okay, vajpayee admirers forgive me, this is just for fun).

The problem will start when it comes to land acquisitions for those projects. One assertive citizen will approach the court, and one judicious judge will issue a temporary injunction. Govindaa Govinda!!

There are cases which run for 50 years. In the meanwhile, our population will continue to grow exponentially, our cities will witness 1000 new vehicle registrations a day and we, the citizens of India, will put up with all this and continue our lives.

The Indian Railways is one of the biggest of holders in the whole of India. What’s more, their land tracts connects cities and states effortlessly. For the uninformed, the railway tracks we cross during our commute are confirmed railway property, no RAC or waiting list business there.

My thinking is, instead of acquiring new land and get into a landmine of problems, why not get into an understanding (aka revenue sharing agreement in case of BOT models) with the railways and build roads in their property? Ofcourse, the railways will have plans for expansion of their railway lines. But we can always build roads in some elevated structure without hampering the expansion plans of the railways.

And anyway, if the railways are reluctuant to share land for infrastructure development, it does not make much sense to ask one individual to give away his only property for govt. guideline values.

I am thinking out loud here - probably some other person has articulated this before. But from whatever little I heard, the emphasis has been more on building hotels, developing real estate and laying optical fibre cables in railway lands but never on buidling roads.

Ofcourse this will not solve the traffic jam in Kathipara junction tomorrow. It will still take 90 minutes to come from Tambaram to Guindy duing peak hours. But yeah, we can avoid new instances of Kathipara like experiences in future.

Brickbats welcome!