Pakorakorner

Treat this as anecdotal evidence. Air Deccan has show dramatic improvements in its ability to fly on time. In the past I have noticed that their flights were almost always late. They also had a serious image issue. A friend of mine said "Give me a call just before the flight takes off and another call just after you land. Only then you can be sure that Air Deccan has actually landed!" If my most recent experience is any metric, ...

Bangalore -- now officially renamed to Bengaluru -- the most sought after destination of the expatriate Indian community looking to relocate to India is a city that is gone completely out of whack. It is one huge parking lot! Infrastructure and growth have no relation whatsoever and there is no respite on the horizon. The city roads are clogged with traffic throughout the day and most part of the night. Efforts are underway to build a new airport a good ...

With the consistent growth in the India economy, domestic air travel has dramatically increased and competition among Airlines has become cut-throat. It is understandable given that there are plenty of new airlines and a glut of travelers. Unused to handling such high traffic, the airports around the country are struggling. The result is that over 40% of the flights are late according to a recent study. My personal experience with delays on domestic airlines in India was 100% and this ...

AOL launched its India site today. With established portals and newspaper sites already well entrenched, AOL's move seems rather late. But with substantial growth still possible as more Indians get on the net, its a classic case of better late than never. Besides, there is plenty of ad revenue to be made provided AOL can drive the traffic to its site.As for content and services offered by the site, there is nothing new. Its the usual "boring" stuff -- ...

The Viacom-Youtube battle is nothing but an attempt to sort out in court what the two could not settle behind closed doors. On the one hand, it just proves that Google made a huge mistake paying 1.5B for a company with $15M in annual revenues and a whole bunch of copyrighted content. On the other it shows that the old media folks like Viacom are clueless on how to deal with the emerging Internet. "When you can't compete, sue". What would ...

There was an article in the Washington Post by Benazir Bhutto, making a plug for returning Pak to democracy and requesting the West to re-consider ongoing support for President Musharraf's military regime. The article did make several good arguments though it was highly self-serving. The reality of the political situation in Pak is that the two main alternatives to military rule, Nawaz Sharif and Ms. Bhutto herself, have had their opportunities in the past and during which time earned little ...

I saw a few recent episodes of the ever popular Kaun Banaga Crorepati (KBC) television show. I thought Shahrukh Khan does a far better job than Amitabh. I thought Amitabh was stiff, father-like and very often quite boring. Shahrukh Khan was at ease, charming and made the show far more interesting. In fact, the biggest downside with Shahrukh Khan is that he is capable of over-doing it, much like his films. Besides, to maintain performance on an ongoing ...

Check out this news report about an NRI who used RTI to collect his tax refunds which had been pending for years. This is just one more example of the success of RTI. Hopefully, there will be many more such successes to follow.

Online booking of airline tickets in India have started to take off. Arzoo, Makemytrip, Travelguru, Air Deccan being a few of the competitors. Not to mention, Yahoo's farechase is also in the game. The start-ups companies in this space have raised boatloads of Venture Capital. (wonder why, for a technology that is so common place in the US). These sites are very much in a state of infancy and there is plenty of scope for improvement.Here are a few observations/tips ...

There are no shortage of news reports and articles about the overheating of the Indian economy. Meanwhile on main street the prices have sky-rocketed for everything from vegetables to real estate. The common man is struggling for survival and Wal-Mart's first launch in India in August is still months away (!!). The BJP Govt. was driven out of power supposedly because the benefits of economic growth (remember "India Shinning") did not "trickle" down to the masses. I guess "Incredible India" ...