Economical-hubspot

 How can the prince reach the crow-master, who, after having been slashed to pieces after a deft bout of swordsmanship, has flapped out of death in the form a dozen misshapen crows and reassembled himself on a castle battlement to which there is no obvious means of traverse? As the teenager’s mind races and he strategises a route that involves multiple launching pads for superhuman leaps, his mother comes up from behind and orders him to shut down the computer. He has entertained himself enough for the day, with TV, football with his friends, and at least 100 pages of Eragon, re-read for the nth time. Time he got back to his maths. After all, he has do well in his 12th Board exams, do better in assorted entrance exams and prepare himself for a successful life. The son protests that he has already studied enough for the day. This is a routine piece of family drama acted out in most middle-class homes of urban India with much sincere passion on the part of all memb...

 That sports has taken over the collective consciousness is apparent in the fact that names no longer mean what they used to. Time was when Rubens was associated with the 17th century Flemish artist who painted voluptuous nudes. Today, thanks to the fortnightly telecast of Formula One motor racing, Rubens is the first name of Brazilian driver Barichello who played second fiddle on the Ferrari team until they decided they wanted someone younger. Time was when we used to hum “Michael rowed the boat ashore — Hallelujah!” Today, Michael is the first name of the driver Rubens used to play second fiddle to and who is now going all out to regain the Formula One racing championship to an extent where he was accused of deliberately stopping his car at a bend on the Monaco circuit so as to make it difficult for the reigning champ Fernando Alonso to better his qualifying time and take pole position. And so Schumacher could well be nicknamed ‘Scheming Schumi’ by the Brit ta...

 Come what come may, penned the Bard, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. Actually, time brings all things to pass! Everything is a matter of chronology, really. Consider, for instance, the radio frequency spectrum for mobile telephony. In particular, the issue of extra bandwidth for the next — the third—generation (3G) mobile services. With the passage of time and technological change, the notion of routinely licensing chunks of spectrum for service providers is now being vigorously questioned, the world over. Very unlike in the analogue era, today’s digital technologies do allow for new approaches to freeing up and managing spectrum. As much as 99% of even highly saturated bands may be vacant in any specific moment in time and space, innovative software can dynamically shift signals to make full use of the fleeting openings in the wireless “ether”(“white spaces”). The point is, new technologies do allow for much flexibility in spectrum usage. The ...

 upset with the way the department of telecommunications has allocated spectrum for mobile operators. In a missive to the Telecom Commission chairman, and then to the prime minister, he has ripped through the department’s move to link spectrum allocation with technology and subscriber base. Gauging the seriousness of Tata’s allegations, and the fact that it has the potential to derail their ambitions, the GSM operators too have gone into an overdrive, with their association and the individual operators all sending rejoinders to whoever cares to listen. A spectrum war has begun. As the subscriber base has grown, the operators have been unable to meet the service quality, so they claim, due to the inadequate spectrum. However, since most of the spectrum in this country is held by defence forces, it is impossible for the government to make it available to operators at one go, as is done internationally. So the government allots additional spectrum “based on a...

 Communications minister’s ‘India One’ scheme has everyone excited. While the minister himself cannot stop gloating over the Re 1 per minute call from anywhere to anywhere in India, several others see it as no more than a political stunt. Whether the common man will really benefit from this move, it’s too early to say. But if experts and analysts alone are heard, most feel it’s a move, which, if not ill conceived, is at least not fully thought through. While BSNL may hem and haw about the loss of revenue and others may point to the fine print saying it does not really help anyone except the big users, and that too only if you are on the same network and that the hiked rental offsets any advantage that the common man may really have had, there are more pertinent issues which seem to have been disregarded. For one, as this paper pointed out in a column a while ago, the primacy of India’s telecom watchdog to set tariffs has been undermined yet again. From all...

 Gurgaon’s glitzy MG Road, also known as India’s ‘Mall Road’ and home to scores of eateries and bars, was witness to a strange protest the other day. Panchayats of villages adjoining the stretch gathered and demanded that bars in these steel and glass structures be shut down as they were corrupting their youth. It is easy to brand this as an act of backward ‘Haryanvis’, but the fact is for all the hype over the scorching pace set by our economy, we seem blissfully ignorant of a very disturbing trend: the rapidly growing divide between India’s haves and have-nots. The tell-tale signs are there for all to see. Traditionally, a large rural family owned land on which they cultivated to earn a living. Along came a builder and bought the family’s entire holding for a price which seemed stupendous for the family. The family rejoiced and splurged on goods and conveniences they always longed for, for years, while their youth invested in cars and other gadgetry whic...

 In the late ’80s, when Sam Pitroda controlled the reins of Indian telecom, there was constant talk of a new telecom policy. But once V P Singh came to power in early ’90s, Sam fell out of favour and the nation blundered along without a cogent policy. A few years down the line, the irrepressible N Vittal assumed charge of the Telecom Commission, becoming the first IAS officer to assume that role, and kept assuring all that the policy’d be out any day now, till one day, out of sheer exasperation, he told me, “I think I will just say that the new policy is coming on this day, this month, and not add the year to it”. We have come a long way since then. From a tele-density of under 1, it is now nudging 10, and mobiles have outstripped landlines in number. And sure enough, since the exciting Vittal quote, we are now readying the third policy document, whose draft has been around for a while. Like all documents, this one too is being analysed threadbare by intere...