The Indian blogosphere has been growing tremendously over the past few years and while it attracts advertisers and money, the question is, has the quality increased alongside?

The vast majority of our generation has had a fleeting encounter or passing fancy for blogging. Just as the lure of the internet was one nobody could avoid, a personal space on the Web, to rave, rant and simply air your thoughts, opinions and varied or specific interests was also something too fascinating to turn a blind eye to. According to the report 2013 India Digital Future in Focus by comScore, at 73.9 million home and work internet users, the Indian online population, currently ranks as the third-largest in the world after China and the US. Add to that the Indian blogging audience grew 48 percent in 2012, to 36 million visitors, while 26 percent of category traffic comes from mobile phones and tablets. From the time when bloggers were merely posting one odd update during free time to now consciously making updates to ensure they stay relevant and constant, the rules of the game have indeed changed.

Karthik Srinivasan, National Lead, Social@Ogilvy at Ogilvy & Mather and the man behind well-known blogs such as Milliblog and Beast of Traal began blogging back in 2000. Across his two blogs he receives about 550,000 page views a month. He defines blogging as having a point of view and being able to articulate it in a manner that appeals to the audience. But that said, Srinivasan feels the Indian blogosphere has undergone lots of changes in the past few years, “On a platform level, there’s tremendous improvement – it is easy to set it up and get started. Readership, though, continues to be a problem.”

Adds Shrawan Raja, Managing Editor, Indian Autos Blog, “There is constant pressure to stay relevant and so we do about 16-20 fresh posts a day. But the challenge in this medium is also to keep the reader hooked for the time he is on your page so we keep our posts short, crisp and ensure variety in our content to ensure that there is constant flow of traffic to our pages.” Raja entered the blogging world while still studying in college; his blog has great following (about 50 million page views a year) — both in India and abroad for news about the Indian auto industry.

COMMUNITY EFFORT

But the wheat separates from the chaff, and so blogging has also evolved and now become the fiefdom of a growing yet consciously closed community that survived on the dictum of everybody helping/ promoting each other to grow. Or as wellknown Indian mommy blogger The Mad Momma (http://themadmomma.wordpress.com) puts it, “I know most of the people who visit my blog and we are a community of our own. We regularly visit each other’s pages and like/ comment on posts. And that in turn intrigues our readers to check out those we are following.” She should know, having been blogging for over nine years.

What you have here isn't unhealthy rivalry or outright thrashing, but a well understood crossmarketing scenario where even as one blogger puts up a post, the rest of the blogosphere is helping her transmit to the entire ecosystem and some more. As Shrawan Raja of Indian Autos Blog explains it, “If Auto Blog likes our page, we are viewed as more credible and derive a search engine benefit too. But the biggest advantage is that our page value then goes up, readership widens and increases as we are seen as a serious player recommended by Auto Blog.”

BLOGGING IS MONEY

There’s money to be made in the blogosphere these days; according to State of the Indian Blogosphere, a joint report published by BusinessWorld and IndiBlogger.in in Marketing Whitebook 2014-15, almost 86 per cent of blogs today are monetized. Anoop Johnson, Director – Marketing at IndiBlogger explains, “There is tremendous interest amongst companies and brands about the Indian blogosphere as they feel consumer behaviour can be influenced by a credible and well-liked blogger.” A blogger himself, he and a group of friends sensing the potential business opportunity founded IndiBlogger by mobilizing, what was until then, almost random and segregated Indian blogosphere. A report by Nielsen titled Global Trust in Advertising Survey 2011, shows that less than a third of Netizens trust advertisements, while 92 per cent have faith in peer and word-of-mouth recommendations.

Says Sudha Ganpathi who has been blogging for over four years (http://thatandthisinmumbai. wordpress.com/), “It is not so much about blogs, but the blogger. There are bloggers I trust and they are always my first source of reference. It is also not so much about information dissemination vs. personal opinion pieces for me as it is about sponsored vs. non-sponsored posts.”

IndiBlogger's model stems from the fact that brands see value in connecting with bloggers who can influence purchase decisions of their peer groups. Their revenue comes from connecting brands and bloggers via unique blogging contests and meets, which are organised periodically across the country. With almost 50,000 Indian blogs registered with them on last count, the fact is there is a large percentage of bloggers who benefit from the cross marketing strategy as envisaged by IndiBlogger.

Sakshi Nanda (http://www.sakshinanda.com/) took to blogging in December 2013, but became a full time blogger only in May 2014 with close to 12,000- 15,000 monthly hits. According to her, “I did begin with the sole intention to air my thoughts, but feeding my blog quality content has helped me develop a source of income too – in the form of commissioned book reviews, paid writing assignments for popular magazines and news websites and exposure to bring in contracts for beta reading.”

While relatively new entrants such as Nanda are also doing well, the majority is making decent money. Blogging can even become a comfortable source of income with many of them choosing to go full-time. Today over and above Google, Amazon and their affiliate ads, there are companies from different industries such gadget makers, auto component manufacturers, beauty and lifestyle product companies and consumer majors and the entire gamut that is finding its way onto the blogging platform in an attempt to be seen and bought. Companies are willing to work with bloggers and see the sense in having a blog as part of their overall marketing strategy. IndiBlogger has big ticket clients such as Lakme, Castrol, M&M, Dove, Samsung, Surf Excel, Fiat, Vodafone and Cleartrip.

But the challenge for the independent blogger is to remain free of favour or fear and not do commissioned posts. As some bloggers put it, there is lot of demand from PR agencies and companies wanting bloggers with a dedicated audience and high traffic to work in tandem with them, and as some let on, there are offers of free family holidays, new iPads and sometimes even exorbitant money for one single post.

Adds The Mad Momma, “I blog about my children and that is not something that I will make money out of. I am against corporatizing my blog. I have done book reviews when I received free copies, but other than that I will not do pointed or ondemand posts recommending anything.” That said, however, there are people who see no harm in indulging in a small give-and-take deal when it doesn’t affect them too much personally. And as one blogger told me anonymously, “I like the freebies. Why shouldn’t I take them? Everybody has an opinion and so what if mine is a little coloured? It’s a free country.”

THE MORE THE MERRIER?

From platform advances to specialized blogs and company blogs, the Indian blog has come quite a distance. The same State of the Indian Blogosphere, a joint report published by BusinessWorld and IndiBlogger.in in Marketing Whitebook 2014-15, claims that in India blogging is the fastest growing medium across the web.

So has the whopping increase in the number and nature of blogs led to better content? Many claim that the growth of this medium is purely on the basis of quality of content. IndiBlogger’s Johnson foresees that going forward, blogs will become as powerful a tool of information dissemination as any other in the social media space, given this is the only form of matter devoid of any coercion.

Bloggers today are getting more specialised and compartmentalised in their offerings to ensure that interest remains high. Add to that, blog posts now include additional material such as photos, videos and even links to actual press releases and other company material to ensure that the reader doesn’t lose interest. “A blogger cannot just put his thoughts online and expect the whole world to be aware of his post – he needs to be a content marketer to help spread the word. Platforms such as Facebook help him pay for reach, but few bloggers do that,” explains Srinivasan of Milliblog and Beast of Traal. There is a growing voice that feels that blogs are losing a battle against social media platforms as online destinations to share their views. But there are others who feel that the unprecedented increase in numbers is merely taking the shine out of the trade.

INDIAN VS WESTERN BLOGS

Quite like most online inventions and adoptions, the West has led the charge on the blogging front. What differentiates the Western blog from its Indian counterpart is the sheer awareness and know-how that the average blogger and reader possesses about the blogosphere. Even when we talk about blogging increasingly becoming a tool for marketing amongst corporate, it was General Motors in the US that took to the blog first when trying to include customers in its culture of innovation rather than simply talk about a particular product/ launch.

The quality and credentials of bloggers from the West far surpass those who are taking to the medium here. For instance there is huge academic populace on the Western blogosphere; there are also far more serious opinions and research made available by writers in the market there. There are those that contend that the difference in the cultural settings and the sheer freedom offered to the average citizen to voice his dissent is much more in those markets – and it’s true. And that is possibly why we are yet to see any forthright political blogs coming out of our country.

It’s not to take away anything from Indian blogs’ popularity, however, which have an overwhelming audience both in the US and Europe for inherently India-centric topics and other areas of expertise. Topics such as travel, culture, food and technology find takers; a prospective tourist relies especially on a blogger’s review and suggestions when planning a holiday.

Despite the glaring discrepancies and differences, blogs have seen a great degree of maturing in the past few years, from the novice personal one-off posts of 10 years ago to serious conversation starters and even opinion makers/ givers in their current form. Credible and honest opinions never go out of fashion and as long as a blogger can navigate the impatient vagaries of today’s readers, blogging will overcome and survive another social media scare.

Modi should continue to tread a cautious but determined path internationally

LIKE ALL INDIAN Prime Ministers before him, Narendra Modi will be in the US soon to hold a summit meeting with US President Barack Obama. That meeting with Obama, one of the most powerful leaders of this world today, is not unusual. But what the US House of Representatives John Boehner did on July 30 this year is definitely unprecedented, and some would say, unthinkable.

Boehner sent out an openended invite to Modi to come over and address theUS Congress joint session on a date “convenient” to the BJP leader. Incidentally, Modi is the only leader in the world to have been denied a visa to the US, citing a US law on religious freedom.

But the strategy behind Boehner’s letter, as reports from Washington suggest, is that when Modi is in the US, the Congress may not be in session. “If not for the unpredictability of the House schedule in late September of this year, an invitation for you to address a Joint Meeting during your upcoming trip to the United States would have been extended,” he wrote in his letter. That uncertainty is now turning into an opportunity for Modi to position himself as a global leader.

One, the Boehner's letter did not come out of the writer’s love for Modi, but his acceptance of the fact that the Indian Prime Minister’s popularity is growing within the US, as over 80 lawmakers wrote to him urging to send out the invite. Two, Modi is being wooed by almost all the nations of the world that have some business interest in India; the moolah that India has to offer in global trade is the real magnet. Being a shrewd politician who understands what a sales pitch really is, as witnessed during his nine-month parliamentary poll campaign, Modi is definitely going to leverage that advantage to emerge as a world leader the global community respects.

Already, there are signs in this direction. The Obama administration has sent over two dozen senior officials one after another to India in the three months Modi has been India's Prime Minister; sometime in the first week of August three of its top-ranking secretary-level officials were in New Delhi wooing the Indian Prime Minister.

In fact, one of the top three — US Secretary of State John Kerry – even tried to dismiss the then George W Bush Administration’s decision to deny Modi a visa to the US in 2005, noting that there has been an administration change both in the US and in India since. All top nations of the world, including those from Europe, have had their heads of states and governments calling up the new elected Indian Prime Minister to congratulate and express intent to do business, or inviting him for a bilateral visit.

France, on its behalf, sent its Foreign Minister Fabius Laurent to hardsell the Rafale combat planes to India during his July visit. Laurent met Modi and the primary focus of his talks with the Indian PM was, ofcourse, defence business.

The Chinese too see an opportunity to further the bilateral ties and to resolve some of the pending issues, including more confidence-building measures along the 4,057-km Line of Control between the two nations, now that India has a strong leader in Modi.

That said, it became quite evident on the first day of Modi’s government that his focus is going to be bettering the souring ties between India and its South Asian neighbours and his invitation to the heads of governments of the seven SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) neighbours indicated as much; the invites included those to his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif, and to Mauritius, which has a dominant Indian Diaspora.

That “Neighbours First” move, said to be his own idea, is still being seen as a master stroke in diplomacy by India watchers, who feel it has clearly established India as the undisputed leader of the South Asian nations andSAARC. The goodwill that Modi earned from the leaders in the Indian neighbourhood could be felt immediately and as both Pakistan and Sri Lanka moved quickly to release Indian prisoners, mostly fishermen who strayed into the neighbouring nation’s waters.

That apart, Modi chose Bhutan for his first foreign nation trip. Bhutan, as the friendliest nation that India has in its neighbourhood, was a choice nobody could miss for its significance. There was Modi sending across a message that India, being the largest and the most prosperous of nations in the South Asian region will be more benign towards its most friendly neighbours.

His Nepal visit, which came in July, just two months after Bhutan, has clearly re-established India’s primacy for Kathmandu’s diplomacy, even upstaging the recent Chinese moves there to wean away the Himalayan nation from New Delhi.

Modi travelled to Brazil, again in July, where he participated in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit, and shared stage with Russian President Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, and the host nation’s Dilma Rousseff. The first overseas engagement for Modi is seen as a remarkable victory for India and the man’s contribution to the multilateral forum in ensuring the establishment of the New Development Bank, a tangible design for a global institution, is being hailed. That’s because not only did he suggest the name for the bank that will fund development projects in the five nations, he also ensured that an Indian will head it for the first five years. That was a significant indication of the leadership role that Modi could play in the international arena in the years to come, as he ensured India’s major contribution in the setting up of the New Development Bank, even though China had walked away with the BRICS decision to headquarter the bank in Shanghai.

With these foreign visits, bilateral and multilateral engagements behind him, Modi is now readying to jet set to five more overseas destinations in the remaining months of 2014, which will take him to three multilaterals — the UN General Assembly in New York, the East Asia Summit in Myanmar and the G20 Summit in Australia. The two bilaterals that Modi will happen in September are the ones with US President Barack Obama in Washington when he is in the US. The trip to Tokyo will be to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who went out of his way to be accommodating, even though Modi’s visit plans have witnessed frequent changes.

Realising the potential of Modi’s global rise, the BJP has taken every opportunity that came its way to tell the world at large, and the countrymen in particular, about his overseas exploits. At the August 9 BJP National Council meet in New Delhi, the newly anointed party president and trusted lieutenant Amit Shah told the 3,000-odd delegates that Modi, as India’s Prime Minister, had restored the global respect India had lost in the previous years.

However, there are pitfalls that Modi needs to be wary of. His government’s recent decision in the World Trade Organisation negotiations at Geneva, where India vetoed a landmark global trade agreement, hasn’t gone down well with global businesses. The strong stand taken by his government shouldn’t deter global investors to look at India as an unpredictable market and that’s where Modi’s challenge lies.

Though he made it clear to the US and global community that national interest would be his government’s primary motivating factor in its international dealings, Modi’s push to energise India’s flailing economy and stabilise its growth could be achieved only when investor sentiments are favourable.

If Modi treads a cautious but determined path internationally, it is onlya matter of time before the world hails his global leadership skills and it will be interesting to watch what he is able to achieve in geopolitics in the months to come.

DEBJIT SAHA // Giants of the world unite! Well, all right, it wasn’t exactly a clarion call but two biggies of the tech world – Apple and IBM — did agree to join hands in July this year. The new IBM MobileFirst for iOS solutions will be built in an exclusive collaboration that draws on the distinct strengths of each company: IBM’s big data and analytics capabilities, with the power of more than 100,000 IBM industry and domain consultants and software developers behind it, fused with Apple’s legendary consumer experience, hardware and software integration and developer platform. The exclusive agreement in place between the two companies is that IBM will develop more than 100 industry-specific enterprise solutions for Apple’s two products that put it on the world gadget stage – iPhone and iPad. Cloud services will be optimised for iOS, including device management, security, analytics and mobile integration. A new AppleCare service and support offering tailored to the needs to an enterprise and, four, new packaged offerings from IBM for device activation, supply and management. Apart from this, the Big Blue will also manage the distribution of iPhones and iPads that comes equipped with these solutions.

As Tim Cook, CEO, Apple said, “For the first time ever we’re putting IBM’s renowned big data analytics at iOS users’ fingertips, which opens up a large market opportunity for Apple. This is a radical step for enterprise and something that only Apple and IBM can deliver.”

As soon as the news broke, the marketplace was abuzz with excitement, media dissecting the fallouts of the deal, experts waxing opine about the two companies and market indicators showing their consent – for Apple shares, it meant a rise by about 1.5 per cent in the after-hours trade, while IBM was up by 1.8 per cent postannouncement. The coming months will see how the two once-rival companies change the synergies of the space and work together. That both companies need each other is an obvious statement. Apple may still be creating a buzz when it comes to the iPhone, but its iPad sales are not a pretty picture. IBM, on the other hand, needs more traction when it comes to increasing its brand equity in the consumer segment – one where Apple leads.

The applications that IBM provides for iOS will be Apple-exclusive. This means that once Apple gets a foothold in a particular enterprise, its in-house software development will have to be focused on the iOS. According to IBM, “The landmark agreement aims to redefine the way work will get done, address key industry mobility challenges and spark true mobile-led business change.”

In my opinion, this would be a boost for app developers in the enterprise space as they can now cater to uncharted markets where enterprise-level data would be needed for certain apps to functions, such as the mission-critical factory and machinery status apps. These kind of apps would have not been possible earlier without the support of a particular organisation's support with internal IT. The advertising market is going to benefit in a great way from this deal. Companies that now partner with IBM to integrate the iPad and iPhone offerings into their systems can look forward to newer sources of revenue right from their employees, kind of a circle jerk, but yes, it might actually work in areas such as pushing work-related perks and offers and discounted deals — the possibilities are endless.

For Apple, this is definitely a win because its rival Android is going to feel the heat when it comes to app downloads in countries such as the US where Apple is already the market leader in smart devices. This deal would only mean more new consumers and an increased number of app downloads for Apple and this makes things only worse for the Mountain-view based search giant Google when it comes to usage shares of mobile platforms.

SHUVO BRAHMACHARI // The IBM Apple deal on the surface seems a natural thing to do, but it has deeper connotations, both from business and technology standpoints. Rising above the anti-IBM rhetoric that Apple indulged in years back, Apple seems to have reconciled to the looming reality that a “Jobsless”, directionless, balancesheet is not getting it anywhere, excuse the pun.

IBM, on the other hand, can only envy the consumer reach the gizmo-savvy Apple has when it comes to phones, music players and tablets. I’m sure IBM is aware of Apple’s limitations and restricted platform policies and vice versa. The two companies have been rivals for years and have even tried to work together in the past, but it hadn’t worked more due to technical limitations than economics.

A lot of questions remain. Will IBM let Apple become more enterprise-friendly? I really don’t think so. Apple products have been valued highly by businesses worldwide, primarily because of its price and because the company’s offerings are perceived to be more suitable for the younger generation. Even the much fancied iPhone took a beating over the cheaper Android-based phablets for business use. Business users made their choice clear when they switched from their Blackberrys, too. Whether it was the price, the iPhone’s smaller screen, or the Apple teeny-bopper/ socialite image is anybody’s guess. Can IBM’s MobileFirst platform transform all that? I don’t think so.

While I’ve seen a lot of opinion floating around that iOS may become the enterprise desktop computing environment, it is extremely unlikely that IBM will consider abandoning an adept and flexible Windows 8 platform, which is a big leap from its earlier, clunky versions. There has also been a lot of hype about Watson power. If it really is the next best thing after Android, shaking hands with Apple won’t help IBM’s marketing cause. It could do well marketing it on its own and not let a bunch of confused corporates bigwigs be forced to make a choice between products that they’re used to and those that don’t yet have a business image, but are based on a futuristic, but unproven integration platform.

While it may do well in the retail market, enterprise has always been cautious. Also, the competition hasn’t exactly been idle with HP and Google teaming up with mobile services such as Enterprise Siri, which will allow business users to fetch data from any device. Where Apple really stands to gain is in the cloud space with IBM cloud services optimized for iOS and leveraging IBM’s data and analytics capabilities. But the question still remains: will businesses buy iOS products? The bottomline is that it is one of those deals with immense possibilities, but also carries huge market risks, especially in the enterprise sector. Will it work? In my opinion, that’s unlikely. I can see the writing on the wall. Unless Apple pulls a marketing coup, it’s the HPs and Oracles of the world that stand to gain in the enterprise platforms. Oh, and did I forget to mention one little company named Google? My apologies.

Will Indian defence budgets ever fulfill India's vision

WHEN FINANCE MINISTER Arun Jaitley set the defence budget at Rs 2.29 trillion for 2014-15, Rs 50 billion more than what the previous government agreed in an interim Budget earlier this year, was he any closer to achieving self reliance? The answer is an emphatic no.

Jaitely has gone down the beaten path, hoping perhaps, that by the gambit of opening the defence sector up to 49 per cent for foreign direct investment, the technology practices in India will grow by leaps and bounds. One wonders how, because the real problems lie elsewhere.

These problems were spelt out in a research paper published two years ago by Dr Laxman Kumar Behara, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. Behara’s paper clearly pointed out that the “root cause of India’s under-developed defence industrial production is its poor technological base and military technology in particular.” According to him, India has a low “technological standing”, and is rated at the numeral 20 as against China’s 82.8, the US’ 76.1 and Germany’s 66.8, to name a few.

In 2008, China exported 28 per cent of US imports of advanced technological products compared to seven per cent in 2000. His assessment is further strengthened by the logic that in India, we do not invest adequately in R&D. In 2006, the R&D budget was a mere 0.88 per cent of the GDP, as compared to 1.42 per cent by China, 2.12 per cent by France, 2.61 per cent by the US and a high investment of 4.53 per cent by Israel. This phenomenon permeates through all sectors including, defence in India.

In the Indian system, the budgetary allocation for defence confines itself primarily to revenue and capital outlays. It is a hackneyed path. Much to a measure of dissatisfaction, the ingredients of nurturing growth of defence technologies within the country are contained in the Defence Procurement Policy of the Ministry of Defence and are limited to providing for offsets in acquisition contracts for weapon procurements. This policy decision stems from the belief that the overseas equipment manufacturer (OEM) will fulfill his contractual obligation enshrined in the contract by disseminating technological processes to the associated team during the technology transfer activity.

This is seen as an indoctrination exercise for budding engineers who are expected to not only assimilate the knowledge but also have to acquire the potential to apply the knowledge at a later date for different applications. But this does not work even if the young engineer is sharp and vigilant, since he is only exposed to the mid-segment activity without any initiation into the preceding processes. Any extra initiative by the engineer is stymied by the controls that are either built into the contract or are enforceable under the laws of the mother state of the OEM.

In fact, the Indian experience, especially with the US industry players, has been full of auditing interferences where US government minions have encroached in our working freedom to ensure that their technologies maintain its sanctity and are not shared. Against such a backdrop, one is unsure about the take on signing deals with defence manufacturers from the US, which are being promoted by Secretary Chuck Hagel as he visits India. In the Indian context, the moot question will always be on how to speedily build our own potential for original innovation and support India’s defence industry.

When the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was formed in 1958 from the amalgamation of the then Technical Development Establishment (TDEs) of the Indian Army, and the Directorate of Technical Development and Production (DTDP) with the Defence Science Organisation (DSO), our goal was to nurture the institution so that we obtain national proficiency.

Unfortunately, this route has remained piecemeal and could not lead to national requirements. In fact, we had even digressed during the Krishna Menon era when our Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) were pushed into making coffee-making machines.

Despite DRDO’s valiant efforts in the subsequent years, there was no escaping the perception that it was being limited by the incapacity in technical prowess, especially in the private sector. Some DRDO ventures nevertheless nurtured development and some shining stars emerged, namely Larsen & Toubro, which with a largely Indian team and under guidance from the DRDO and Russian technologists, set new benchmarks with the development of nuclear submarine “Arihant” and several other weapon systems.

Same is the case with the much criticized light combat aircraft (LCA), which despite the formidable delays, allowed critical aviation technologies to permeate into India’s Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs) and which could happily percolate to the engineer of tomorrow. It is believed that among the private industry, a segment of the work was also undertaken by a subsidiary of the Godrej group. These are the kind of links that will allow technologies to take deeper routes in the industrial workplace.

The volume of task is but huge and the only long-term approach would be to grant funds under the defence budget directly to technology institutes for promotion and development of technicians and scientists to commence, augment and build a base for defence technologies and not rely merely on other parallel S&T labs institutes to generate human resource. However, this will have to be a continuous feature and not a one-time step. Although not shown by the Ministry of Defence, we have precedence with the earmarking of Rs 35.44 billion for the Department of Science and Technology in the proposed budget. It’s a hike of 11 per cent over last year’s allocation of Rs 31.84 billion. The Department of Science and Technology has some of the country’s leading research centres in areas such as nanotechnology, materials science and biomedical device technology. The government proposes to strengthen such centres through public–private collaborations and generate the required human resource.

Waste warriors in Dehradoon is trying to clear the mess and show what it takes to keep India clean

Being a foreigner does get her more attention, she says unabashedly, “It helps to open doors and people pay attention because you’re from another country.” But being white, she says,has its drawbacks, too. “People think you have loads of cash and will eventually go back to your own country. I can guarantee that won’t happen, I am committed to a cleaner India; it’s my life’s mission.” she says in a breath.

Jodie Underhill has declared herself a warrior and she is willing to fight anything that comes in the way – perceptions or garbage. Last year when the floods ravaged Uttarakhand, it was not easy to miss the busy girl. For Underhill was busy organising mass cleanliness drives at Jolly Grant Airport in Delhradoon as well as various helidromes, which had been turned into garbage dumps once the rescued pilgrims and their kin left for home. That her NGO, Waste Warriors (WW) was only a year-old was not something that stopped her or her team.

Recognition soon came her way when Union Minister of State for Tourism Dr K Chiranjeevi announced Rs 5 lakh in his personal capacity forWaste Warriors. Ask her what it meant and she says,” He’s a really nice down-to-earth gentleman. It was a humbling experience to know that a word of our work had reached Dr Chiranjeevi.” She says his donation kept them going for about six months and the organisation achieved a lot, thanks to his support.

But of course, resting on their laurels is not something her team of warriors wants to do,and that is something this Brit is clear about. For the challenge of waste management in a country such as India is no mean task and everyday comes with a fight. Funding the work, confides Underhill, is the biggest challenge. Everyone says “Good job, well done”, but people rarely put their hands in their pockets and donate. “The stigma attached to waste is another big challenge, as is changing people’s habits and mindsets, working with the government and dealing with negative people.”

But then challenges are something that the young woman who now lives in Dehradoon, thrives on. What else can explain a tourist-turnedcrusader’s mission to make India clean? Ask Underhill what got her to India and she has a smile light up her face. It was 2009 and she had just landed in Mumbai as a tourist. “The first thing that struck me was the smell and the garbage everywhere. I hoped it was just because I was in a city but I soon realised the garbage menace was everywhere.”

She was put off, of course, but it wasn’t just the “gather mysticism and go back” philosophy that struck this young woman. Instead, she found herself swearing that she would do something about the mess – clean it up, for instance.

What had probably come to fore was her upbringing. Born in Great Yarmouth, England (a tourist destination on the coast of Norfolk) her parents divorced when she was nine and she moved up to Yorkshire.What she remembers distinctly about her childhood is her mother and her love for cleanliness. “My Mum was always pretty strict about keeping things clean and tidy and I guess that’s always stayed with me. I have never dropped a piece of litter in my life and that’s something I am grateful to her for. If you teach kids when they are young, it becomes as natural as breathing.” says Underhill.

Ask her if she knew what she wanted to be when she grew up and she chuckles, “I was never sure what I wanted to be growing up but when I left school, I went to the British Racing School in Newmarket so I could work with racehorses. I always loved animals, had a vivid imagination and loved the outdoors.”

Its little surprise then that after her usual touristy things, she found herself in the Tibetan Children’s Village in Dharamsala as a volunteer. The garbage situation was something that bothered her every single day and in April 2009, she decided to do something about it. Underhill’s first mass clean up in McLeodganj, the home of HH the Dalai Lama, was attended by over 100 people and it proved to her that she wasn’t the only person who wanted a cleaner India. “I still remember thinking,wow, I’m quite good at this and I really enjoy it, maybe this is the thing I have been searching for,” she shares.

Soon she formed a voluntary organisation by the name of Mountain Cleaners and started a weekly waste collection from Triund, a remote but garbage-stricken mountain camp, a fourhour hike from McLeodganj. Volunteers came in plenty to not only segregate and sort waste from chai shops and guest houses but also to clean the hiking trail and clear the backlog that had been thrown over the side of the mountain. It would be interesting to know that Triund is now known as one of the cleanest hiking destinations in India.

That success is addictive is no cliché’. In April 2011, the model was rolled out to the sacred Gaddi Temple Guna Mata, a three-hour hike from McLeodganj and in November that year extended to Bhagsunag Waterfall, a popular tourist hotspot.

All this only gave a definitive direction to Underhill’s dream. Ten dustbins for the local community were purchased and in April 2011,the group recruitedits first employee Lok Man to empty them. Over time, more dustbins were installed, which meant that people in the surrounding areas no longer needed to burn or dump their waste.

Thanks to the ongoing support of volunteers, they cleaned and started maintaining children’s playgrounds, which until then had been used as dumpsites by local hotels. To stop the waste being dumped there again,Underhill set up a door-to-door waste collection service from businesses and households, taking on more staff to deal with the extra workload.

Over 60 children attended the first educational Children’s Day held in October 2011 and pledged to join them for monthly events.

Underhill’s passion for cleanliness was soon met by Tashi Pareek,who joined the team in December 2011,giving the team a chance to spread its wings further. The dream was now extending beyond the hills. Underhill has conducted beach clean-ups in Goa and helped manage the waste at Sunburn Music Festival. This wasjust before she moved to Dehradun in May 2012 to start her first urban project, thanks to start-up funding from the Max India Foundation.With a dream of reaching out to all of India, Waste Warriors was registered in September2012.

This month, the organisation will turn two and the dream is set to grow bigger. Today Waste Warriors employs 26 staffers across three projects (Dehradoon, Dharamsala and Corbett). But the numbers are supplemented by volunteers and interns, who are a significant part of the team.

Among the many things that the organisation has managed are Airtel Hyderabad and Wipro Chennai Marathons last year and is helping to plan a project in Mumbai by the Mahindra Group.

Every day, confesses Underhill, is a challenge: “There is growing office work, three projects, lots of field work, presentations, event waste management, educational programs and so on. My life is action packed!” But then working in dirt and filth isn’t easy, is it?

“I have no issues with the garbage side of things. In fact, I love getting stuck in and seeing the transformation take place. I am driven by my belief that change is possible and the desire to see a clean India evolving for the next generation.”

The bigger vision says Underhill, is to eventually have projects in every state and also create an online system so that they can help people become Waste Warriors wherever they are in the country. The aim is to ensure the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules are enforced so that every citizen can safely dispose of her waste and help municipalities in creating those systems. “We want to give every school child a sense of civic pride and give waste workers the respect and pay that they deserve for the work that they do. We want a clean Ganga and are prepared to work hard to make sure all of the above actually happens,” she signs off.

Here’s a book by IT professional Dev Prasad, which takes you through all places of significance in Krishna’s life, making it an excellent travel guide as well

you CaN read it as a religious, spiritual book about the life and times of one of the greatest gods of Hinduism – Krishna. Or you can get engrossed in it as a fascinating travelogue.

There is no dearth of Krishna devotees through the ages. Examples of this devotion include Sudama, Jayadev, Narayana Bhartadari — who authored in Malayalam the Narayaneeyam – and Pondaanam of the Jnaanopana fame. Each one of them overcame the trials and tribulations of their life with pure bhakti and each is said to be miraculously blessed in a unique manner. Thus, Meera Bai, who couldn’t think beyond her Giridhar, survived all torture inflicted on her and breathed her last at Krishna’s temple in Dwarka. Sudama was blessed to be his friend; Bhatadari healed of paralysis the moment he completed his ode with the 1036th verse of his 100th chapter; and for Jayadev, who Krishna impersonated to complete the one verse stopping his compilation when the former went for his bath.

A devotee can find his Krishna in any of the compilations listed above, in Meera’s bhajans, in the seminal Bhagwad Gita, the ISKCON literature... The options are manifold.

But for the electronics and electrical engineer that Dev Prasad is, it made him choose the road less travelled. The book Krishna-A Journey through the Lands & Legends of Krishna is a travelogue of the places and legends associated with Hindu god Krishna. It takes Prasad from Krishna’s birthplace in Brij Bhoomi – Vrindavan — to the place where he is said to have died.

Dev transports the reader through his first-hand experiences of visiting Brij Bhoomi – from Kansa Qila, Krishna Janmsthan Temple, Potara Kund and Dwarkadheesh Temple in Mathura. From Mathura he goes on to nearby Mahavan, stopping by at the Yogamaya Temple, Putana Temple, Trinavarta Temple, Yashoda Bhavan, Nanda Bhavan, Chatti Palana Temple, Revathi Balarama Temple, Patal Devi Temple, Utkal for the grinding-mortar incident, leading you through Gokul, Raval, Baldeo, Vrindavan, Madhuvan and Talvan, Radha Kund, Goverdhan, Barsana on to Nandagaon for the emotional separation of Krishna from Radha and the gopikas.

The writer then moves to Mathura again, and westwards to Dwarka, Porbandar/ Sudamapuri, witnessing the Kurukshetra and Somnath. Prasad has embellished each chapter with a relevant verse from the Bhagwad Gita. Thus, while Kurukshetra has the verse on duty, Sudamapuri carries a verse on devotion. The author points out with his eye for detail that the majority of Krishna temples, except those in the Brij Bhoomi and surrounding areas, depict him as a warrior God with the mace and Sudarshana chakra. In other temples, he is shown as a young boy playing the flute.

The chapters on Sudama and Krishna, and Radha and Krishna are bound to make the eyes moist and are so well described that you feel you are there witnessing it.

Why Krishna, despite being a warrior, fled from the battlefield is not looked on with contempt but revered as a hero and hailed as “Jai Ranchod” with a temple in Gujarat. The author interprets the “Purna Avatar” concept of Krishna who, unlike other avatars who played the one role scripted for them, excelled in all his roles — from being a cowherd boy, son, friend, warrior, statesman, diplomat, king charioteer and lover.

There’s also the Krishna who inevitably accepts Gandhari’s curse of the Yadava dynasty killing each other to death, with a smile. Allowing the law of karma to prevail with Jara the hunter to kill him with an arrow in his Achilles heel after the Kurukshetra war has finished and all the Yadavas have killed themselves. It is worth mentioning here that Jara was Vali in his earlier birth, whom Rama – Vishnu’s other avatar — killed by stealth.

After the author takes the reader through all the places that are of significance in Krishna’s life, he leaves the reader with a thought on how he wants to attain Krishna consciousness — as his evil uncle Kamsa, his two mothers Yashoda and Devaki, his father Vasudeva, his friends the cowherd-boys, his lovers the gopikas, the demons whom he killed, the Guru Sandipani, his mate Sudama, his love Radha, Kamsa’s wrestlers, the hunchbacked garland-seller in Mathura, the cows, the snake Kaliya, the devotee Meera, or his wife Rukmini. Such is the authenticity of the book that it is bound to be referred to by other books on Krishna in future. For instance, the best seller Krishna Key has this book by Dev Prasad in the acknowledgements column.

In addition to maps and other reference material, Prasad also gives tips on the places to visit by way of weather conditions, appropriate clothes, logistics of stay and travel. Here’s one travelogue that blends the present practical with the mystic and mythological past.

Gita Ramesh’s culinary book talks about the deep connection between food and Ayurveda, the ancient science of healthy living

ayurveDa IS the world’s oldest known medical science, which originated in India over 5,000 years ago. Not just a healthcare system, Ayurveda is a lifestyle that promotes general health and well-being. Based on the five main natural elements around us, treatments aim to create holistic health. According to this system, what we eat and how we eat has a strong bearing on our health.

Ayurveda suggests a vegetarian diet incorporating fresh ingredients to attain maximum benefit from therapies. The Ayurvedic Cookbook by Gita Ramesh is a guide to Ayurvedic culinary practices. In Ayurveda, every human being is a unique combination of five elements provided to us by Mother Nature — water, earth, fire, air and ether. In Ayurveda there are three primary life forces in the body or three biological humours. These are called Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Vata denotes ether and air, Pitta stands for fire and Kapha is water and earth.

Ramesh’s book details various recipes to suit all body types — Vata, Pitta or Khapa. With the aim to offer a balanced diet and maintain a healthy lifestyle, the recipes are included keeping in mind one rule — food should be high in nutritional value, medicinal value and also retain its flavour. Ayurveda believes that the foundation of life is in the phrase “you are what you eat”. This is even more relevant in today’s ready-to-eat and takeaway era.

With few books available that target a medicinal approach to cooking, the USP of the book is that it details the nutritional and medicinal value of every fruit, vegetable and spice used in daily life. However, the book does not elaborate what foods are good or not beneficial for the three types of constitution elaborated in Ayurveda. But the book scores big with a 14-day diet plan with detailed recipes, which will enable and hasten weight-loss by eating right.

The Ayurveda Cookbook also offers recipes for foods that are simple, fresh, organic and easily digestible. These recipes renovate simple cooking into an intuitive and holistic experience and offer you the much-needed break from routine cooking. The best part is that even one with little cooking skills can follow the simple and amazing recipes of this book.

Trek to a nearby village, simply breathe in the fresh mountain air or plan a ski trip in the next few months. Auli is a place that can be anything you want it to be

It was not exactly easy to snuggle my hand out of the warm blanket to reach the phone and check the time. But unlike the winters in Delhi where the 5 am alarm doesn’t always bring out the best in people (many nods , are such a reassurance ever for a morning person like me, I tell you!), I was actually up before the alarm rang and believe me, I was anything but grumpy. After all it’s not every day that you wake up in Auli and know that in some minutes, you would view the mysterious Nanda Devi peak. Sense the city stress ebb out of as you view the glory and dig into the philosophical side of life. Or just sip the morning tea as you let the nippy wind charge that adventurous spirit of yours.

Your reasons to be in Auli could be as varied as a day in this lovely place can be. And anyone who told you that Auli is only a skiing paradise obviously didn’t spend enough time exploring the place. At an elevation of 2500 to 3050 meters above sea level, the 270 degree of the views from Auli is enough to make you come back for more. Mana, Kamet, Nanda Devi and a panoramic view of the Himalayas — just what you need to get the larger picture of life in place.

September is a lovely time to be in Auli, also known as “Auli bugyal”; (bugyal means meadow in the local Garhwali language). The grass is a brilliant shade of green having been bathed with all the mountain rains. Sling your camera, slip into comfy walking shoes and take in the serenity of the place. The wind is chilly in the evenings and mornings but some lucky days get just the kind of sun to get you in the right sprit. For a day in this place and you are sure to know why legend has it that Lord Hanuman decided to take a break here while on his way to search for Sanjeevani herb that was to save an injured Laxman.

You can make Auli a destination or also use it as a base to do soft one-day treks. You could do Gorson- Tali (about 6km), Auli-Gorson (around 7km), Khulara-Tapovan (around 9km), Tali-Kuari Pass around (about 11km) or brave the rewarding Kuari Pass-Khulara (about 12km). Either way, you will love coming back to the comforting views of Auli.

A relatively small place, you have a few options to stay here. I settled for Devi Darshan Lodge, a hill house converted into a lodge run by Mountain Shepherds, a community-owned-and-operated ecotourism company. That I was brave enough to be driven in a Santro that had done its bit of running in Mumbai and Pune roads and landed me in this beautiful hill lodge was enough to make me smile. Black smoke from a fire somewhere lost itself in the gathering evening clouds that still hadn’t lost their rosiness from the sunset. Picture-perfect, I thought.

And what do you need after an exhausting drive? Some home-style delicious local food served with love in a living room that could easily pass off for a friend’s beautiful cottage in the hills. What makes this living area-cum-dining room perched on top of a row of rooms special is that it has glass windows almost the size of doors. While the moon makes an alluring image of the night outside, the morning views are glorious. The lodge is done up with an informal warmness in bright colours with local knick-knacks put up tastefully. Don’t forget to sip on some herbal tea such as local nettle and chamomile available at the lodge.

If you feel like a break, go and see what is called the world’s highest man-made lake. Right next to a private hotel, the government developed this in view of creating artificial snow on the new ski slopes in case there is low snow fall. The water from this lake is to be used to feed the snow guns stationed along the ski slopes and help extend the ski season.

While you are out, don’t miss the small joints just below the slopes of Auli that dole out Indianised maggi served with a generous sprinkling of green chillies, fresh coriander and onion. Have heart and dig into a bun omelette accompanied with adrak chai and you are sure to recall it as a one-of-the-best-omelette-I-had moment.

And no we are not saying don’t do the obvious in Auli. If you do go there in September and miss the skiing season (which is on from December to February), you always have time to do a recce for your skiing trip. Auli boasts of Asia’s longest —four km — cable car (Gondola). It also has a chair lift and a ski-lift and the slopes are considered great for amateurs as well as seasoned skiers. You could enrol for certificate or non-certificate courses that last from four to 14 days.

Go on, do it all in Auli!

The thing about an art exhibition in a hallowed space is that even before you enter the gallery, wafts of air-conditioned air laden with smells of paints and public, emptiness and emotion reach you when the door opens and closes for the visitor before you. At least that’s what it does to me. Despite never being an artist and having been a gallerist for years, I feel a rush of excitement and nerves. I know I’m going to be in the exalted company of works of art, art lovers and connoisseurs (well, at least most of them, unless they’re “only” collectors, of course, who are a different breed of people, but exciting nonetheless), and if you’re lucky, the artist him/ herself. That’s one of the highlights. They won’t talk much, most of them; they’re shy, introverted people. Yet, talk to them a bit beyond the pleasantries, a bit into their work, and the door opens, ever so slightly, into a charmed world.

Here, at the India Habitat Center, a sense of calm and peace pervades the gallery, even as Niren himself quietly walks around, now glancing at the collection in silence, now answering an odd question for a visitor. The show is called “40 Years. 40 Works”, a sort of mini retrospective encompassing the career of the accomplished artist, Niren Sen Gupta at the Visual Arts Gallery.

I’m seeing a solo outing by Niren in a long time, and maturity and evolution in his oeuvre is in its full splendour. Beginning with some earlier works of early 1970s, through his Moksha series and now the Ancestor series, there’s a good spread on display. The eyes are absent in the Ancestor series, and the viewer feels at ease, with no obligation to acquaint himself with the protagonist, and engages with his state of mind instead. A ubiquity of fingers, instead, lends an air of sensitivity and imagination. The ancestors are the context, the setting for the coincidence of a man’s birth. Almost the entire canvas of life is spread out at birth, and the journey pretty much meanders through large and small brush strokes on this canvas only.

In Niren’s series, ancestors now fill up an entire canvas, now consume a large part of it, and in one of the most compelling works, IV, they cluster around, crowding even the firmament. “Marvel” looks like an illustration from a storybook, and “Shivpuri Family” reminds one of KG Subramanyan. But my personal favourite was “Bhagirath” with the towering yet gentle figure of the king holding Goddess Ganga in a symbolic urn, even as all of thirsty humanity flanks him for the sacred waters.

The other highlight of the month is the 60th Anniversary show by Lalit Kala Akademi at the Rabindra Bhawan. Though the formal opening was on August 5, I was told to come the next morning. On the lower ground floor, some replicas of Ajanta murals were still being moved around, being mounted or dismantled, I couldn’t make out which. Behind the previous evening’s deepdan and flowers, some women were posing for pictures, even as the rest of the exhibition space had only a sparse smattering of visitors, mostly young artists. A group of Akademi employees walked past me with a printout of images and details, checking the mounted paintings and ticking along.

At the entrance itself of the upper ground floor, where the exhibition actually begins, there is a large Tyeb Mehta in his fully realized form, and inside, a beautiful Akbar Padamsee, and a blue F N Souza, which despite all its grotesque elements in place, cuts a lovely picture. But then, important works of artists in their fully realized form is rare for the rest of the show, where senior and acclaimed artists’ works are either small or unimportant or from their growing phases. For, right next to the Tyeb is a large, but unrecognizable Manu Parekh. Yet, this element of the show also allows you a rare peek into the evolution stage works of, say, Lalu P Shaw or Thota Vaikuntam before they became victims of their signature styles, and two or three exciting early-phase Badri Narayans. There are some other offbeat works. A dry, desert-like landscape by, guess who, Surya Prakash, who is now famed for his verdant, luscious forests. And a soul-stirring landscape by Paramjit Singh, with large blank spaces, laden with meaning; so different from his full fields and forests of today.

A sense of anarchy seems to rule the layout and the work of an exhibition designer and even a curator appears completely amiss in the picture. There is no chronological order in the display, little aesthetic balance, no distinction of genres, not even contemporary art distinguished from the folk and tribal arts. There is little representation of other art forms in the show, a smattering of sculptures, an etching by Anupam Sud, and a linocut by Raj Kumar Mazinder. That’s almost all of it.

I loved the “Tiger on the Bridge” canvas by Bhupen Khakhar and a canvas by Shailesh Joshi. Also worth seeing is an Atul Bhalla’s canvas and a soulful diptych by Arpana Caur. Though the eye keeps searching for works by some much loved artists such as Anjolie Ela Menon, Krishen Khanna, Rameshwar Broota or Sanjay Bhattacharyya, yet, judging by the scattered layout, it’s possible that their works are also hidden among riff-raff.

One thinks that maybe a catalogue with a curator’s note would help make a better connect with the collection, but there is no catalogue for the 60th anniversary show — not yet, at least. One would have expected a path-breaking exhibition from Lalit Kala Akademi, especially to commemorate its 60 years!

The weather is sultry and the mood of the nation that of unsettled rest. The import of the preceding months with their high octane activities—the mother of all elections, the unprecedented victory of the saffron party, the rout of the grand old Congress Party, and the mammoth swearing in—are still to sink into our subconscious.

The Union Budget tabled by Finance Minister Arun Jaitely came as a safe one sans populist agenda, showing that the government means business and not propaganda. Alas! Most of us used to tall promises made by governments felt a little shortchanged. But isn’t it time for us to rise above petty self interest and unite for the good of the nation? The government has given a call for some harsh measures. We know they are needed to put the economy back on track. Of course, we will feel the pinch, but the returns will far outweigh the costs.

There also seems to be less of media frenzy surrounding our political leaders these days. A welcome change one would say, if we our leaders conduct their businesses with the dignity attached to their offices. Take for instance, the oath-taking ceremony of PM Narendra Modi. Despite the more than 4,000 guests and SAARC leaders, it was a smoothly conducted affair and that to at a “modest” cost of ` 17.6 lakh as brought to light by RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal.

This brings us to another vociferous critic of the ills plaguing our system and society—Dr Kiran Bedi—on our Cover this issue. She has emerged as another unlikely supporter of BJP and PM Modi calling him a strong leader. Bedi credits PM Modi for overcoming her distaste of politics: “Narendra Modi’s call to the nation inspired me. My earlier aversion to politics has declined considerably.” What defines Dr Bedi is her extreme courage and belief in the espousal of a cause. More about her inside...

Meanwhile, as you look forward to Delhi getting some clear direction on elections, in August there is also much else to feel enthused about. The rains (what if they are scant!) and the chhalle (corn), Kajri Teeej and the swings among the trees, the songs and mehfils and our DW issue. We did a departure with Deepa Agarwal, delving into her grandma mind to find a clue to her children’s writings. Padma Shri photojournalist Pablo Bartholomew’s images transport you into a still world where pictures speak louder than words. Plus the regulars. Happy reading!