As I picked up the newspaper today expecting more information on what more steps the outgoing RBI Governor Subbarao would take to curb inflation, I was greeted to my utter distaste by a synopsis of the verbal duel between MNS-Sena-Congress. For all the heat being generated in this Mumbai-for-Marathis and Mumbai-for-India debate, no one in particular is actually fighting for Mumbai's own cause. The MNS-Sena is fighting for rights of Marathis in Mumbai, Congress-RSS for rights of non-Marathis in Mumbai. But no one is addressing the problems of the average citizen in Mumbai - Marathi or non-Marathi! The BMC announced its annual budget yesterday - a news which got buried, thanks to the cacophony on Marathi Manoos issue [probably raised on purpose by the Sena to avoid attention to the budget]. The budget at best can be described as 'barely essential' if not insufficient. The budget of Rs 20,417 crore has shown an increase of merely 4 per cent in comparison to last year’s budge...

The thought of death sparks a slew of emotions in one’s mind – grief, anxiety and sometimes anger - with me it also sparks a reflective mood. The thought of death makes you humble. Everyday we keep running to build our lives – achieve professional success, set up a home, innovate, change the world – Chasing Daylight. But death reminds you that none of this matters at the final hour – not the money you’ve earned or the number of people who know you (who would mourn you), or even what you leave the world as! Once you are gone – its all over, in one quick shot, its gone! Its too early for me to contemplate what one will be looking at when the final hour nears. All I can contemplate today is what if the final hour was to arrive now? Would I be happy? May be not. Would I be satisfied – may be ... yes. A book that I read a couple of days back – Chasing Daylight – made me realize even more that in our daily rigmarole to build our lives, its important to stop and take stock. The book was writ...

3 idiots hit the theaters on the day I got married and is being hailed as the biggest grosser ever - while nowadays every new film which reaches even a decent box office milestone is hailed as the biggest grosser ever - 3 idiots is indeed a nice film. Raju Hirani has developed this very unique ability to transform real life into drama. Which is why I feel that the next movie Rajkumar makes should be on entrepreneurs . Now that India's most successful entrepreneur Dhirubhai is already taken (Guru), he could pick up a Kishore Biyani (Big Bazaar) or Sanjeev Bhikchandani (Naukri.com). But my personal pick would be Steve Jobbs or Bill Gates - the only problem being that these characters may not ring a bell with the Bollywood audience. Coming back to 3 idiots - there were a few scenes which I could relate to - one of them was the suicide scene, but its too vexing to talk about memories which it sparked. The other scene which touched me was where Sharman Joshi's character faces the in...

I haven't updated much about my personal life during the past 6 months ... probably the most 'unusual' 6 months of my life. I met Divya exactly 6 months ago on July 12th (this was at the Oberoi Mall, Goregaon), and probably the first time I drove her back to her office in KulupwadiBorivali (also the locality where she stays .. till now). Sidethought: I am feeling spooky about my life again! My courtship is ending in an exact 6 months (a limit I secretly desired for my courtship period). I got engaged on 15th August and am getting married on 25th December. Something is really spooky ... why does my life have so many 'perfect' endings? Since then there have been numerous trips to Borivali - in fact averaging 2 per week - one each on Saturdays and Sundays. Today, as I was driving back on the Western Express, I suddenly felt nostalgic realizing the fact that today was the last time I dropped Divya off to 'her' home in Borivali; the last time I was driving back ...

A presentation I gave at a 'mock training session' during an adult learning workshop organized at KPMG. Do Contact me if you need more inputs than this presentation. And Btw ... as many would know, I am getting married on this Christmas - the wedding invite is at the website www.divnik.in (which is the screenshot that you see below on the title slide)! Do visit ... and comments invited. How To Design A Website View more presentations from Nikhil Kulkarni .

There are some actors who are attractive, some who can act well and one in a billion that are StRoKe of lightening. Shah Rukh is a stroke. Even the word stroke has his initials. http://bit.ly/7mg4Xo Some quotes from Retd. Col. R K Kapoor's interview (maker of Fauji) : (During Audition for Fauji) I asked them to fight me like an enemy. I punched a couple of them really hard. But Shah Rukh, in his turn, gave me the punch of my life. He hit me so hard that I saw stars in the daylight. Then, I knew he had something in him apart from a charismatic face. I had found my Abhimanyu Rai. What has worked for Shah Rukh is that he is universal. He is not an angry young man. Neither is he a `sanyasi' or a lover boy. He is all of them and still none of them. Other SRK related posts: Chak De Review , OSO review

Continued From: Why doesn’t Indian startup ecosystem churn out product companies? Let me start by picking up a few ideas from Paul Graham . Not Buildings If you go to see Silicon Valley, what you'll see are buildings. But it's the people that make it Silicon Valley, not the buildings. I read occasionally about attempts to set up "technology parks" in other places, as if the active ingredient of Silicon Valley were the office space. Building office buildings for technology companies won't get you a silicon valley, because the key stage in the life of a startup happens before they want that kind of space. The key stage is when they're three guys operating out of an apartment. So if you want to reproduce Silicon Valley, what you need to reproduce is those two or three founders sitting around a kitchen table deciding to start a company . And to reproduce that you need those people. Universities The exciting thing is, [if] all you need are the people, If you could ...

Look at most successful Indian startups or look at a broader area of ventures (including initiatives by large businesses) in general; Tech or non-tech - what is clearly evident is the abundance of success stories in the services sector and an equivalent dearth of product based businesses . In fact, if I were to think up successful product venture from India - only 2 names come to my mind: PureIt from HUL in the consumer products space and Slideshare in the web space. (I am counting out Zoho here because the company is based out of the US and use India only as a ODC - essentially turning India operations as mere services arm.) A quick Google Search on the subject will reveal few reasons for this; for example: Lack of deep pockets of Indian VC's to fund serious research and hence Indian entrepreneurs can’t afford to take big bets Failures are not welcome in India Lack of 'optimism' in the Indian consumer - hence very sluggish adoption of new 'products' Aping the w...

Recently Sam Pitroda recently mentioned that - "too much focus on engineering and medical education has created a situation in India where liberal arts really did not get the kind of attention it deserved." He said: "A good liberal arts education is important to produce leaders. India has now begun to recognizse that we need not only world class engineering education, we also need world-class liberal arts education. And, we agree that the model we have in (University of) Chicago or Harvard is a model that we need to look at , but it needs to be Indianised - it has to be of a local context." Clearly, Pitroda is talking about the skewed model of having competitive exams for professional courses only which has created a void in liberal arts education in India. Unlike US system, Indian universities do not have a uniform SAT for admission across disciplines – so while for entry to professional courses like engineering and medicine we rely on AIEEE/SEEE and PMT/CPMT’s bu...

"It was his child - the bank, how could he let it die?" - these were the thoughts which reverberated in Gopaldas's mind on that cold winter morning as he sipped his morning tea before readying himself for office .... for the last time, he thought. But had it not been for him, the Bank would have been sold out long ago. Samaj Uday Cooperative Bank was an ailing bank and so small in its operations that apart from its own depositors and borrowers, hardly anyone knew about the Bank. Started in the early years of Indian independence by a group of small traders along Gandhian principles - the Bank's main aim was to provide credit to small traders and businessmen. Gopaldas had joined the Bank in September 1962, the month he remembered so precisely because it was the month India went to war with China. He had joined as a junior clerk but his diligence in the early years saw him rise fast and become an officer by the time he got married. By 1984 he was among the senior managem...