Lesson for the day

How not to decide on gift: Let five women brainstorm :o

Lesson for the day

If you see your boss happy for no apparent reason, dont ask him "hey you look very happy today, is there any gud news???"...

its likely to put him on guard and make him wear his serious / bossy hat again

bored...

Indian Bindra wins men's 10m air rifle gold...

Gold medal in olympics, a first in my lifetime...unbeleivable

The high cost of low price

Today I had one more of the know-all socialist with a conscience types trying to convince me that government subsidies are good and the fact government is or trying to shield the consumers from rising oil and commodities prices is infact good. Hmm...I can understand where he is coming from, all through our lives we have been educated that government is good and it can solve all our problems. All we need to do is look to the government and abra ka dabra all our problems vanish. If only it were that simple.

What people fail to understand is the cost of subsidizing oil is the unending power cuts faced by households all over the country, non stop traffic jams faced by motorists, overcrowded public transport systems, reduced spending on research and development of newer and cleaner technologies. Because the money spent in subsidizing oil would otherwise have been spent on power plants, roads, public transport and research.

While protecting the poorest of the poor from price volatility in the short term is a good idea, in the long run subsidies do more harm than good. If an educated white collar worker in a city does not get this trade off how will the aam admi get it, the biggest challenge before the political class and media is how to communicate this trade off to the people?

Sangam Cinemas: Poised to fill the void in Chennai theater scene

In the past 2 years when I was away studying outside, chennai has made rapid strides. The modern retail boom has caught up, the quality and variety of restaurants, cafes, pubs and other hangout places have grown dramatically. Hell! even the number of radio stations has increased with one even playing english music sometimes, much to my pleasant surprise. The interesting thing is these changes are not restricted to South Madras where the IT boom is centered but also to central madras and to some extent north madras regions. While the retail outlets, restaurants, hangout joints and even services like high end beauty parlors have spread all over the city access to quality movie theaters in central and north madras has not improved. Sathyam, Mayajaal and City Center remain the only options for the young educated while collar workers in the age group of 25-35 when it comes to English movies.
Ega and Abirami have tried screening English movies in the past but have failed to attract sufficient audience. This is not surprising considering the poor infrastructure these theaters have. Is there a market for another quality English movie theater in Central and North madras? are you kidding me with areas like Annanagar, Chetpet, Kipauk, Kellys, Purasaiwakkam the region is packed with middle and upperclass households with large disposable incomes. With no quality offering nearby all of them now endup at Sathyam cinemas every week...with the kind of supply demand mismatch especially in the weekends and traffic problems all of them would readily switch to other options near to their homes if given an option.
In this context Sangam cinemas can easily become the preferred choice for this audience and consequently move up the value chain as it has many things going for it

1) Located at the Poonamallee High Road Kilpauk
2) Easily accessible in terms of road connectivity
3) Good infrastructure (ambiance, parking, sound, etc etc)
4) Has started to play English movies regularly

However IMO to succeed in moving up the valuechain it will have to take a few steps

Make sure that the guy who picks up the telephone knows english...if you want to attract a cosmopolitan crowd then we need to communicate with him in the global language
Employ more security staff in case the some people disturb the audience while the movie is playing
Improve the Cafe in terms of variety
Price the tickets higher (for heavens sake we dont want friggin whistling and hooting during a power packed dialog or a touching romantic scene)...
Increase the number of shows during weekends

Sangam has a lot of potential...I hope it becomes the next sathyam of chennai....Gook luck

Free Ringtones

Have won a free ringtone in a lays packet. Have no use for it so am posting the coupon number for some one to benefit.

SMS CCCN09 for Nokia/Samsung mobiles and CCCP09 for other mobiles to 9972040000.

Have fun ;)