allocation// The government has ordered a cut of nearly 20 percent in its 2014/15 healthcare budget due to fiscal strains, putting at risk key disease control initiatives in a country whose public spending on health is already among the lowest in the world.

Two health ministry officials told Reuters on Tuesday that more than 60 billion rupees, or $948 million, has been slashed from their budget allocation of around $5 billion for the financial year ending on March 31.

Despite rapid economic growth over the past two decades, successive governments have kept a tight rein on healthcare expenditure. India spends about 1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on public health, compared to 3 per cent in China and 8.3 per cent in the United States.

But hopes were high that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was elected in May, would upgrade basic health infrastructure and make medical services more affordable for the poor.

The United Nations estimates about one third of the world’s 1.2 billion poorest people live in India.

The move reflects the government’s struggle to achieve its 2014/15 fiscal deficit target of 4.1 percent of GDP.

honoUr// The President’s Office announced the Bharat Ratna award to Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya (posthumously) and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The announcement was made on the eve of Vajpayee’s 90th birthday and the 153rd birth anniversary of Pandit Malviya.

The BJP has been demanding Bharat Ratna for Vajpayee for a long time; and BJP patriarch L.K. Advani has been at the forefront of seeking the highest civilian honour for the former Prime Minister.

Earlier, Advani had written a letter to the UPA Government to award the Bharat Ratna to the former Prime Minister. The request was obviously overlooked since the award was conferred to cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and scientist C.N.R Rao in 2013.

A Bharat Ratna for Pandit Malviya, a freedom fighter and the founder of the Benaras Hindu University was proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his election campaign. Justice Giridhar Malviya, the grandson of Pandit Malaviya was one of those who proposed the nomination of PM Modi from Varanasi parliamentary constituency. Vajpayee will be the seventh Prime Minister to receive the award, while Pandit Malviya will be the 12th person to be honoured posthumously.

Earlier recipients of the award include former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Morarji Desai, Lal Bahadur Shastri, along with first Governor General of free India C. Rajagopalachari, and former Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

economy// It is still a small component of India’s Rs. 38 trillion ($600 billion, roughly Rs. 38,08,200 crores) overall retail trade industry. Yet, the e-commerce format with sales of Rs. 1 trillion ($16 billion, roughly Rs. 1,01,552 crores) managed to create a buzz in 2014 like never before - not just with mega promotions but also with mergers, acquisitions and some crazy valuations.

Data on Internet penetration in India backs the scales of operation. There are currently some 250 million Internet users in the country. As per various estimates, the e-commerce industry, now valued at $16 billion, is growing at 30-40 percent each year and will top $100 billion (roughly Rs. 6,34,700 crores) in the next five years.

Going forward, experts expect several developments in the online retail space. Besides logging a 40-45 percent annual growth, they feel huge investments will flow into logistics to overcome the challenges of last-mile reach. They also expect large retail chains of Reliance Industries and the Aditya Vikram Birla Group, among others, to go online.

Experts also predict some initial public offerings in the near term not just because existing investors will seek to realise value but also since the online retail industry will need funds for infrastructure, logistics and warehousing estimated at $500 million now and 1.9 trillion by 2017.

violence// An armed man took people hostage at a popular café in Sydney and displayed an Islamic flag with Arabic script in the window, sparking a security alert in Australia.

Australian authorities stormed the café where a self-styled Muslim cleric had been holding hostages killing the gunman. They moved in some 16 hours after the siege began, after hearing gunfire inside the Lindt Chocolate café, New South Wales police Commissioner Andrew P. Scipione told reporters.

Two of the 17 hostages initially held by the gunman died, according to Scipione. They were later identified as Katrina Dawson, 38 and Tori Johnson, 34. Other people were injured, including a police officer who suffered a wound to the face from gunshot pellets. All were described by police to be in stable condition.

Authorities sealed off surrounding streets, evacuated people from buildings, and suspended rail services following the incident at the Lindt Chocolate café in Martin Place, in the heart of the Sydney’s business district. Martin Place is a public pedestrian thoroughfare through the heart of Sydney, joining its parliamentary, legal and retail districts.

weather// The government has announced an SMS-based warning system which will provide alerts on cyclones, tsunami and other weather-related natural calamities.

Inaugurating the system on the occasion of Good Governance Day, Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Earth Sciences said information on warnings will be disseminated to officials involved in administration, district magistrates/collectors besides fishermen, farmers and general public. “The information should be provided from the national to village level,” Harsh Vardhan said, adding that, Principals of schools should also be provided with this information as they can disseminate it to a large number of children.

Vardhan said that this exercise is a part of Prime Minister’s Digital India Programme and one of the components of the programme is to create an SMS-based weather information and disaster alert system.

“The whole process would take almost a year to get operationalised since we need to collect data and put it together. We would be closely working with the Ministry of Home Affairs and agencies like National Information Centre and NDMA to put all the data together,” he added. IMD is also taking assistance from Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, for the project.

A provision is being made for issue of SMS alerts to the general public, who would be required to register on Indian Meteorological Department website This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for this purpose.

religion// Hindu nationalists claim that Muslims and Christians have been forcing Hindus to convert to their religions for centuries. So there is deep sensitivity to proselytizing by non- Hindus, particularly foreigners. Visas for religious professionals are strictly limited, some missionaries are instructed not to proselytize openly and, now that a Hindu nationalist has become India’s prime minister, hardline Hindu groups have begun a longdreamed campaign to claw back some of those conversion losses.

Recently nearly 200 Muslims were reported to have been converted en masse to Hinduism by an offshoot of the powerful Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist group that is the ideological wing of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party and that once employed the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.

The same group has announced plans to convert thousands of Christians to Hinduism on Christmas Day.

Some recent converts reported being tricked into the ceremonies with promises of economic benefits. But the leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Mohan Bhagwat, has promised to press ahead with the conversions, which his group has called “Homecomings”.

“We will bring back those who have lost their way. They did not go on their own,” Bhagwat said recently.

About 80 percent of India’s 1.2 billion people are Hindus, but nearly 15 per cent are Muslims and the rest are Christian, Buddhist, Adivasi (indigenous tribes) or Zoroastrians, known as Parsees.

The more things change, the more they remain constant

WHAT IS it like being abroad, living in New York, living in the greatest city in the world, the pinpoint centre of the known world? What’s it like to actually live here and not just come visit for a whirlwind tour of the happy-hour pubs, the titty-bars and Times Square?

Let me tell you a story.

Years and years ago, on a train from Delhi to Calcutta (now Kolkata), I saw a young man, slightly older than I was then, selling some inane plastic toy/ puzzle for kids. The toy in itself held no charm for me, nor did it pique my interest. It was one of those mazes or something, made of hard, shiny cheap plastic — dumbed down, yet infuriatingly difficult, all the more as it was, in essence, dumbed down. No. What piqued my interest was the lad selling these idiot traps — a definite cut above the usual hawkers on trains, his entire demeanour screamed out loud that he was doing something beneath him, that it was only a passing phase, sooner than not he was going to make his pile selling these gee-gaws and then?

Until then, however, he was quite evidently resigned to sell the things in a good spirit, his manner slightly lofty, unconsciously condescending, even a little sneering. One caught a tone of wry amusement towards the very toys he was touting, the passengers he was trying to sell those silly five rupee little pieces of plastic to, to the world in general that made him resort to this.

“No, the game’s really good,” he would say, referring to his wares, using the Bengali word for toy (khela/ game), his voice ringing with confidence, with infallible conviction that this was only a step on his way to a better life.

I was, as was my usual habit in those days, sprawled out on the top bunk with a good book in my hand and a lit cigarette dangling between my lips. As the train rattled on, I was spinning yarns in my own head, deliberately oblivious to the multitude of bourgeois menageries around me, until the confident tone in this guy’s voice penetrated my insulated bubble. I remember feeling a little surprised at his patent incongruity in the role of the train hawker; perhaps even a little resentful of his savoir-faire as he quite obviously wasn’t the patently cringing and obsequious usual runof- the-mill hawker.

“Nah, the game is really good,” he’d say, as though the fact surprised even him. Unconsciously he was putting himself at a position at par with the potential buyer, something your usual train hawker wouldn’t dream of doing in democratic India.

Honestly, it offended my sense of propriety somewhat — as though his dignity and pride somehow were offensive — something quite not right. He had no right to be this confident, though I have no recollection of actually thinking it through at the time. However, young adults are tolerant, or at least I was when I was a young adult. I chose to grin and bear his “offensive” lordliness. My fanciful imagination even dreamt up a bhodro (genteel) household of impoverished gentility, bereaved, perhaps, of the father, a household with a loving mother, a worshipful sister and an adoring aunt, with our haughty salesman the sole bread earner.

The mother and aunt must have put together meagre savings to set him up in business and he would start off every day, riding trains between local stops, back and forth, not selling too much, but full of bright, untarnished hope and a deep conviction that it can only get better from this point on.

In the strange way of this world, I saw the same guy a few years later. In the relativistic travel paths of our individual lives, two years had passed in mine, in which I had graduated, lost my father, had nearly got over my first serious heartbreak and was beginning to consider being serious about the whole business of earning a living to sustain self and family.

In his life it must have been a relatively longer period. The jaunty confidence was gone, the manner not supercilious anymore, and though even now his worst enemy wouldn’t accuse him of being cringing and obsequious, the smile was not condescending any more — merely weary. The shoulders drooped and the smile etched deeper lines next to his nose.

I see this man in my mind’s eye clearly and wonder where he is now, how his journey might have been in these 30 years since. The reason I remember him is for one reason and one reason only – his demeanour and evolution thereof reminds me of myself; I can draw clear parallels in our lives before and after.

We who live abroad — the much touted NRIs — have such a wonderful life; just check our Facebook pages. And it is, too, in the majority of cases, to be really honest. Take a ride on the F or the E Subway train in the morning rush hour; you don’t see Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis (Bangali, to be strictly precise) or any other nation.

What you see each morning is Hope. A mass of immigrant hopefulness — optimism so thick you can cut it with a knife. Designer dresses lightly misted over with perfumed expectation, Brooks Bros shirts collared with just the right winning strategy, making the courageous daily expedition from Queens to Manhattan to try and sell the tawdry, plastic dumbed down self to a lackadaisical market, expectation and hopefulness worn with a jaunty panache, fresh as a hot bagel and coffee in the morning, minds focussed and honed in the whetstone of firm conviction and memories of loving families left behind.

Eight or 12 hours later, the commute is reversed. The patina is worn, the soul that little bit more eroded and wrinkled around the edges, the numbed weariness in the drooped collar and wrinkled dress and eyes shifting away from contact, fingers feverishly swiping through the touch screen held in front like a shield. An accelerated erosion from the time when you started as bright and shiny as your new VIP suitcase.

Drawing on reserves of faith to not give up; the indomitable, unvanquished courage to just show up again the next day to man up through the “humour”, through all the petty little defeats and the paltry victories of just making it through another day of keeping a job. Through all the gnawing homesickness, the merciless missing of the past and the kind of loneliness felt only by the exiled and the transplanted.

Gloomy?

Nah, the game’s really good.

Given the ever-changing and updated face of social media, how marketers or even individuals can navigate these choppy waters and keep up with the buzz

Social media is always awake and in that sense, there is always something happening or trending or changing in its realm. Whether it be new features being added to LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter; or new rules and regulations for members and visitors; or just a brand new look and feel of a social media entity, the constant buzz and change are not easy to navigate for everyone amidst all the clutter and chaos of daily living and multiple responsibilities. So how does one who is logged in, stay afloat in these murky waters and manage to remain clued in to the eternal buzz?

Being on the forefront of social media changes isn’t rocket science. There are many simple yet effective steps that one can take to ensure that you are on top of the latest trends, that too using social media itself. And what might those effective tools be?

1. Read social media news websites: Social media news websites do a good job of analysing, summarising, commenting and updating all the updates and developments in the space. By scanning or following these sites on a weekly or monthly basis, one can stay in the loop regarding all the happenings in the social media world. Some of the sites that help in this regard are Mashable, The Next Web, TechCrunch, Social Media Examiner and so on.

2. Set up weekly summary newsletters: If you don’t find joy in surfing through new sites every day, the other alternative would be to set up a subscription for a technology summary newsletter so that the news comes to you in a format that is easier on the eye and, most importantly, is delivered directly to your inbox.

3. Subscribe to RSS feeds: RSS or really simple syndication is a technology that allows you to subscribe to and read various websites all in one place. Thus, when you come across blogs or news sites related to social media, simply subscribe to their RSS feed and you are clued in.

4. Use a social bookmarking site: Sometimes, you find a great article that you want to get back to later when you can spare the time required to read and understand it at leisure. Social bookmarking sites such as Del.ic.ious allow you to bookmark news that you find.

5. Create a stream on Twitter with popular hashtags: The best place to find out about the most recent developments in social media is on its various platforms itself. Start by creating a stream on Twitter with popular social media hashtags such as #socialmediamarketing.

6. Follow industry leaders/ influencers: The beauty of social media is that experts and industry leaders are often logged into the buzz, too. Whether there is a new announcement or takeaway regarding the industry, company or social media itself you will find there industry leaders/ influencers tweeting and discussing about it real time. By following them you too stay clued in.

7. Use Google alerts on terms and influencers: Once you have a list of popular hashtags or terms and influencers, you can set up a Google alert for some of them. That way you will get regular updates when they post, or are interviewed or quoted. This way you are kept abreast of even breaking news from the industry.

8. Join a LinkedIn group: While discussions on LinkedIn are extremely lively, most importantly, this professional media networking site will also help you connect with other enthusiasts in your field of interest and network with them, while allowing you to learn something along the way. Not all groups that you find are relevant at times, but they offer you opportunities to meet and understand interesting ideas that are taking shape in related industries.

9. Facebook groups can also be of help: Similar to LinkedIn, Facebook groups can also help connect you with people who are sharing news, experiences and even asking for help. The advantage being that at times, you can even connect in person with folks in your neighborhood through the more unofficial forum that Facebook is. Most cities have localised clubs or groups that you can join and thereby stay in the loop.

10. Attend conferences or monitor through Twitter: Participating in a social media conference is a great way to hear from the experts and also have your questions answered. The biggest advantage of social media is that even if it is not possible for all of us to physically attend these gatherings, you can definitely follow them. All social media conferences have a corresponding hashtag that you can follow during the actual event and through the live updates/ tweets from participants, you have access to the information being shared and discussed on the ground.

11. Don’t forget your email: As we get caught up in the social media frenzy, we tend to forget scanning our emails for any important updates and news. There may be newsletters and other summaries designed and created for you waiting in your inbox to be looked at, which could possibly tell you of some new development that has passed you by in a flash. So make sure you utilise those subscriptions by reading those emails sitting in your inbox.

12. Make new friends: Take a close look at your friends circle — are they open to new technologies; do they talk passionately about the latest features of Facebook or Pinterest? One of the best ways to stay updated is to follow/ befriend/ link to other smart people in your industry. Most of the updates and perspectives one gets are from people who discover great content online. By connecting and following or networking with industry and thought leaders, you are also constantly exposed and updated on social media’s trends and ideas.

13. Listen to Podcasts: Podcasts are digital audio or video episodes that you can download and view/ hear at leisure. New episodes come out regularly and they represent the latest trends in innovation.

14. Watch social media TV: Surfing YouTube is a fun and informative way to stay up-to-speed on social media. For reliable and constant content subscribe to a YouTube channel that is focused solely on social media.

15. Learn visually from Pinterest: Pinterest is a great place to find infographics and visual information on social media. Add to that, Pinterest has tweaked their smart feed algorithm to ensure that the content you see and receive are more relevant, and of top quality.

Navigating social media while also sticking to your routine responsibilities can at times seem like running on a fast treadmill. But the beauty of social media is that one can, with a few intelligent tweaks, make it work for you in a manner that enhances your experiences and leaves you smarter and on top of the game.

Yes, women need to speak up against any violation of their freedom or personal space. At the same time their is an urgent need to bring about a social change so that the population at large learns to respect women

INDIA IS IN the grip of an image crisis over the frequent crimes against women — cases of rape, molestation and sexual harassment, in particular. Two years ago, December 2012, to be precise, the brutal rape of a young physiotherapy student on-board a moving bus and her fatal injuries left the nation shocked and enraged.

That brave heart has now been immortalised with the “Nirbhaya” tag.

The horror came back to haunt Indians when on December 5, 2014, the rape of a young financial executive by a cab driver from a reputed international public transport firm. The incident attracted similar attention, although not with the same intensity as the winter of 2012, when the citizens from the national capital region were out on the streets of Lutyen’s Delhi protesting.

India doesn’t need any more Nirbhayas.

According to the latest data from Delhi, the number of crimes has doubled year-on-year in 2014, with 1.4 lakh cases being registered till November 30, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. In 2013, the number was 70,000.

Though the Delhi Police data does not talk specifically about rapes or crimes against women, it is only understandable that the number of cases registered under the relevant sections of the law for these too had witnessed a corresponding increase during this period.

Definitely, this data does not mean the national capital region's (NCR’s) population is getting increasingly criminalised within a matter of 365 days. But one can easily imagine that legal awareness among the general public on their grievances and reporting crimes against them or those witnessed by them to the police, has increased over the years.

This awareness has been contributed by the people’s movement of December 2012 against crime perpetrated on women, with more and more women becoming bold enough to go to the police when their individual freedom and personal space have been violated, be it within their homes or outside.

This is the way to go if respect for women has to become a habit for Indians. This doesn't necessarily mean citizens in all cities, towns and villages of the country would have to go on weeks of protests, voluntary or mobilised. But protests do have a place and role to play in a democratic society. There are even better ways and positive means to achieve change.

The Indian government and the state administrations would do well to create mass movements for women’s safety and security, on the lines of the “Clean India” campaign, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

This movement, which we can even name the “Nari Satkaar Abhiyan”, should be initiated by the prime minister himself, just like the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan he launched, and use his popularity to help create a culture of respect for women in the Indian society.

For starters, the governments at the Centre and the states should use International Women’s Day on March 8 to launch the movement with a grand show in their respective capitals. It could be a call for people to a rally to show their support to the movement and to take a pledge.

Having said that, however, this effort can't be a one-man show and the governments need to rope in all sections of society. First and foremost, the police forces of the states should be included in the cause. Police forces need to begin by having a dedicated call centre or a mobile app to which women or persons close to the women in distress can call or message. The police forces should have quick-response teams that can reach the women in trouble, just like a mobile PCR teams of the Delhi Police.

In the early 1990s, when female infanticide was a major social menace in Tamil Nadu, the then state government had taken up a mass contact programme to save the girl child. The Tamil Nadu government had announced several schemes, including an adoption programme, to save the girl child. Several social outfits and religious organisations in the state participated in mass campaign to eradicate the cold-blooded practice of murdering the girl child, either in the womb or soon after its birth. That campaign by the state government had achieved great success.

One of the best efforts that have been an overwhelming hit for decades now, and may be a good model for the police forces, is the pre-paid taxi and auto rickshaw services that the police force in all major cities and town provide today. At the first point of contact, the police should register the auto rickshaw or the taxi that a traveller takes to her destination. The traveller pays in advance, but the driver of the auto rickshaw or taxi gets his due only after he has dropped the passenger and returns to collect his money from the police post. This system will keep a check on the errant public transport drivers.

Can’t a similar pre-paid system, with help from residents associations or market associations, be set up in every locality in all cities and towns to prevent incidents such as the December 5 attack on the young executive in Delhi?

At the same time, religious leaders, community elders and non-government organisations need to communicate to the society that they have influence over how people perceive crimes against women and respect for 50 per cent of the population. Even trade unions in the public transport sector, such as auto rickshaw and taxi unions, should instil a sense of respect for women passengers among their constituents.

With an increase in religious fervour in the country in general, and the sprouting of the ashrams, deras and spiritual institutions across the nation, spiritual and religious organisations attract a mass following. These could be put to best use by their leadership in spreading the good word as part of the Nari Satkaar Abhiyan. All satsang and bhajan programmes at these religious institutions should carry the campaign’s message to the masses.

Community assemblies such as the khap panchayats, sanghs and bhavans, too, could focus their attention and energy to participate in the movement to show respect to womanhood and instil a sense of morality.

Non-government organisations, political outfits, quasi-political outfits and their leaders with a mass reach are among the best tools available to the government and society to bring about a social change.

Crimes against women are a perversion in society that needs adequate treatment. To treat the same, there is an urgent need to change the mindset of the society itself.

Life has a way of finding its own course. For Amish Tripathi, it has also brought love, luck, success and spirituality

From being arrogant, aggressive and an atheist, he is now more patient and has faith in god. A lot has changed with, and within, bestselling author Amish Tripathi. To me, however, he came across as the same humble author I had met before the launch of his first book Immortals of Meluha. Even now, he was cool and did not seem particularly starry-eyed despite the fact that his publisher had signed him for Rs five crore in advance for his next series.

We meet at a coffee shop close to his place in Mahim in Mumbai, a place where Tripathi likes to catch up. I ask how it feels to be a famous author and if anything has changed since his first book. “I am not sure about being famous and being recognised. But yes, a lot has changed within me,” he says, after a moment’s thought, adding, “I was that typical ‘banker-MBA type’, notoriously competitive, arrogant and constantly comparing myself to my colleagues in a bid to climb the corporate ladder and chase bonuses. Despite earning well, I was unhappy and there was negativity within me,” he admits. “There was a lot of ‘I’ within me and I was an atheist,” he says about his life that once was.

Tripathi says he is a changed man now. He is positive, calmer, does not get stressed and is in better touch with his emotions. Now, there is no negativity within him, which is the result of an internal radical shift. Books have changed him, he says, and have brought him back to faith, making him more spiritual.

Other things have changed, too. An IIM-Calcutta alumnus and a banker of 14 years, Tripathi faced rejection from 20-odd publishers with his first manuscript. Today he is India’s fastest-selling author. His Shiva Trilogy has sold over 2.2 million copies in print, with gross retail sales of over Rs 60 crore.

He is not sure if the next one is going to be a series or just one book, though. Will it be historical fiction, too? “There are a lot of interesting ideas in this genre. I have my own version of the Ramayana and Mahabharata. I also want to write about Akbar, Manu and Rudra. I hope I can write about all of them,” he says, lending a peek into his interests in spirituality and ancient culture.

“But I am under no pressure. I have started writing and want to complete the book before my next birthday — October 18. But, it’s true that when I signed the deal I did not know what I was going to write,” says Tripathi, who started his writing career in the backseat of his car. He finished the first two books of the trilogy whilst holding a full-time job and wrote during his hour-long commute to work. “If you want to write, you have to make time. In 2011, I resigned and wrote the third book of the trilogy Oath of the Vayuputras “.

Tripathi’s Shiva trilogy books are based on the adventures of the Hindu god, Shiva. They are based on a premise that Shiva was a real historical man and his grand adventures gave rise to the myth of the god. It’s about a simple man whose karma recast him as Mahadev, god of the gods. The interesting bit: Tripathi was a committed atheist until 10 years ago. Today he is a devoted Shiva worshipper.

How did this happen? “I believe that my books are a blessing and my soul prepared me to receive that blessing over decades, without my conscious knowledge,” he says.

What helps Tripathi in the creative process of writing is that he is never lost for ideas. His quest and fascination for ancient history, philosophy and the future of human civilisation led him to write historical fiction books. Tripathi’s interest in history and culture also stems from the fact that although he was born into a priest’s family, it was a liberal setup where a lot of discussions took place on religion and history.

About the days when he was writing the Shiva trilogy, Tripathi says the series started with life as a philosophical thesis about good and evil. “When I discovered that Hindus and ancient Persians use interchangeable words for good and evil, I set out to find more. It started off as a way of answering the eternal questions — what is good, what is evil,” says Tripathi, adding, “Once I started, the story just followed,” he adds.

Gautam Padmanabhan, CEO of Chennai-based publishing firm, Westland, which published Tripathi’s trilogy, seconds the fact that the author has no dearth of ideas. No wonder then that the company signed the Rs five-crore deal without even knowing what he will write about. As he puts it, “After having read the first draft of his next book, however, my conviction in Amish and his work is stronger. I am glad that we signed the deal prior.”

Marketing has contributed significantly to the success of Tripathi’s first series. In fact, he can be considered the guru of book marketing among the new breed of authors. He credits his wife Preeti Vyas, a children’s book publisher, for the marketing strategy.

She conceived the line-up of eyecatching marketing efforts. After all, who had heard of teasers of the first chapter of the first book, book trailers on Youtube, music albums with topnotch musicians, previews at film theatres and an effective social media campaign to help drive the book buzz?

“Even great books are forgotten if they are not marketed well” Tripathi feels, “It’s a myth to think that books sell themselves. There has to be good marketing accompanying it,” he adds. The author is clear that when writing, he only cares about the creative process and the story; when it comes to selling he’s “practical and pragmatic”.

It’s not marketing alone; distribution too has also played an important role in Tripathi’s success. E-tailing is great news, too. “My book sold 7,000 copies on a single day when it went online,” shared Tripathi, revealing how he earns 20 per cent royalty from e-books alone.

Talking of the Indian publishing industry and how it has changed, Tripathi asserts that while previous generations have struggled with celebrating their own writers, preferring to read Shakespeare and the likes, the younger generation are reclaiming Indian writers. According to Tripathi, the Indian publishing is now rooted within India and not just confined to Lutyens Delhi and South Mumbai.

Just as he is comfortable reading Shakespeare, Tripathi says he can equally celebrate Kalidas and Mirza Ghalib. This embracing of one’s own culture, according to him, has helped boost book sales in India.

In fact, Amish’s books are doing extremely well in regional Indian languages as well. His books have been released across the Indian subcontinent in various languages, including English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu and Assamese. Additionally, Jo Fletcher Books (an imprint of Quercus Books) bought its English language rights outside the Indian sub-continent and published the first book, The Immortals of Meluha, in the UK in January 2013. The book released in the US in the summer of 2014, and also been released in Spain and Indonesia. It will soon be released in Portuguese, Greek, Turkish and Vietnamese.

When asked if he is the process of writing has become any easier for him, “Oh yes,” he remarks, earnestly. Earlier, he would go about with an excel sheet and a template on how to write. His wife later suggested he abandon those templates and write as if he was recording a story unfolding in a parallel universe instead. “Her advice helped me. Today, I just go with the flow,” Tripathi says.

Currently, he is reading Dr Ambedkar’s Pakistan and is awed by the man’s writing and analytical skills. So impressed is Tripathi with Ambedkar’s writing that he intends to read as many of his books he can lay his hands on.

For Tripathi himself, the future looks bright, what with his fourth book in the offing and the trilogy film rights having been sold to Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions. When asked if he is involved in writing the screenplay for the film, he says no. “I am only the creative consultant.”