India's first online Health-care community - RxQure.com

In India Health-care is still quite unorganized. There is no major national chain of hospital, every state have their local hospitals which are good for certain treatments, for an outsider like me who wants to look for treatment options in a new city he doesn't know where to look for reference. I often end up asking my local friends & colleagues; if they or their acquittance had undergone treatment before they are able to help, if not than I have to try my luck with them.

Same is the case with local physicians, at-least with the coming of Practo we are now able to get some review for them. But still there is a huge gap when it comes to information related to health-care in India, also there is no online forum where you can take advice from fellow patients in India and also share your experience to help others.

Recently I was happy to know that a friend of mine has come up with an online forum for Health-Care in India called RxQure.com, you can visit it here: http://www.rxqure.com/
The layout is very neat and the users have already started shooting their queries and sharing their experiences, I can see in few years it will have invaluable content for any body looking for hospital review, health-care advice or even tips to stay fit & healthy.
Make sure that you also sign-up in RxQure.

Why do we do business?

Why do we do business?

The most common answer would be business of business is to make money, but that's not the correct answer its just the end result.

I came across two excellent links one article and a video which sums up the answer very well.

"It's not about exiting for millions of dollars or going public. It's about changing the game. It's about seeing something that's not quite right in the world, and deciding you want to fix it. For me, personally, it was observing that marketing is broken. Most people hatemarketing. we want to transform marketing into something people love. It's hugely ambitious, but I have this feeling, deep-down inside, that we're right." by Dharmesh Shah on his blog

"The goal is not to sell people what you have but the goal is to sell people what you believe. That's what great organisations do. If you can't show people why you are doing, chances are they willn't buy your product" by Simon Sinek on TED

A Perspective on Economy of Agartala

Since liberalization in the early nineties the economy of India has seen tremendous growth which was not stalled even by the dot com bubble burst in 2000 and the recession of 2009. But the economy of Agartala has not been developing in tandem with the economy of the country. The development has been quite slow; though lot of consumer brands in telecom and retail have entered Tripura but that would be mainly because the markets in tier 1 and tier 2 cities have saturated and they are looking for new territories to expand their business.

Entry of MNCs and the rise of Indian giants have provided the perennially cash starved middle class with higher disposable income, but Agartala seems to have not benefited much from it. There are handful of private companies in the state so majority of the people have govt. jobs which until recently was not very high paying. So the population with high disposable income is very low in the state.

The young population between the age group of 23 – 40 are major spend thrifts; they also constitute the major part of the Indian population. In Tripura major chunk of the young population leaves the state for higher education and they never return. Those who stay back to study in NIT, Tripura medical college etc can’t spend much as they are students and when they graduate, a major chunk again leaves for job in the big metros of India. This large scale migration of educated and talented people has not helped the economy much. One might argue that the expatriates send money back home for their parents, but the parents being from the pre-liberalisation era don’t spend more than what’s necessary.

We all know that the economy develops when the spending of the population increases, this was the reason behind the booming of American, Japanese or Korean economy. Even the Indian cities like Mohali, Surat, Coimbatore etc sees high consumer spending and are doing good.

The buying pattern of the consumers of Agartala haven’t evolved much; the major buying takes place once a year during Durga puja while the rest of the year buying takes place only for occasions like marriage, birthday etc. The buying is pre-decided and the instances of impulse buying are very low. The retail space of Agartala is such that it doesn’t encourage much of impulse buying. The shopping malls are major places of hang out for both young and old, lot of people of who go to malls to do window shopping and pass some time end up buying something. The city centre at Agartala is a poor substitute for a mall, to me it resembles more like Battala super market.

So does it mean that the retail brands don’t have much hope in Agartala? I would say No, I don’t see a reason why mass brands like Reebok, John Player, Lee will not do good here. The people of Agartala have high aspiration the reflection of which we can see in the buying pattern of cell phones and 2- wheelers. The retail brands have to just educate the consumer about themselves; they have to incentivize them to spend more than the planned shoppings. I believe discount stores like Loot, Brand Factory will have good prospect in Agartala.

Ten days in a village school

After my final trimester exam I had plans of going on a pan India tour. But then I saw an email from the social responsibility forum of my college, the mail was from an NGO looking for a volunteer to teach computer at a school near Lonavala for a week. For the last 9 years I have lived in big cities, I always wanted to see the rural life in India. So I decided to take up this opportunity. I cut short my trip by 8 days and mailed them confirming my participation as a volunteer.
The school is run by an NGO named SAMPARC, providing education to around 300 students from Std V to Std X. It is also the only school till Std X for the neighboring 10-15 villages. It is a completely residential school for both boys and girls. The school is located in a village named Bhambarde about a 35 kms from Lonavala. Only 4-5 buses go there in day, there is no other means of transport. The school is in a valley surrounded by hills on four sides, making it an extremely beautiful place but the hills also obstructed mobile signals. After reaching there I realized I will not have any mobile connectivity during my stay here.
Teaching there was an amazing experience, I was training the teachers on MS-Office, internet and few other basic things. Most of the teachers were quite elder than me, the school had only two computers donated by students of IIT but that didn’t stop them from learning. They would always pose me with questions regarding the problems which they faced while using computer and my solutions would make them happy like a child. Their joy on sending their first email made me immensely satisfied.
I was given accommodation in their school guest house; the room was twice the size of bedroom in Mumbai. The food at their hostel mess was quite good. Every evening after teaching I would go out to explore the area, I discovered a small hill where I could get little cell phone signal. So every evening I would climb that small hill to get in touch with the outer world. I also went to the villages along with one teacher, the villagers are extremely poor, most of them are farmers but due to lack of irrigation facilities they can grow crop only once a year. The NGO is doing amazing work over there; they have provided a health centre which is the only one in that area, they have provided tube wells. The education, hostel facility, food, books, clothes everything is provided for free by them. The school has hundred percent pass record, the students regularly win prizes in sports and science exhibitions. It is regarded as a model school in that district. Without this school most of the children would have ended up as child labour. The NGO has few more schools like this in different parts of India and all the expenses of running them are raised by donation every year.
On my last day I was given a shawl and a letter of appreciation for my small contribution. While leaving I felt sad as I would miss their love and hospitality, I would miss the kinds who were my company in that one week, I decided to come back again later this year.

Journey of two years

Today with the last exam I completed my two years of MBA. It seems just like yesterday when I had shifted to Mumbai on a rainy evening, and before I could realise the two years are over. These two years were worth all the sacrifice and hardship. When I joined MBA I was confident and ready for any kind of challenge but I was tested in very different ways, it grounded my confidence and built it all over again from the scratch to a height taller than ever before. And now I feel I am ready to take on the world.

Another thing which contributed a lot to my learning was the city of Mumbai. I came to Mumbai with lot of apprehensions, as I had heard different versions about this city from different sources. I had lived in Bangalore, Chennai and had traveled to other metros like Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkata etc. Its needless to say that each city has its own characteristics and is different from the other. But Mumbai is perhaps the most different from the rest, unlike other cities it doesn't leave you alone, it takes you in its folds and before you can release you turn into a Mumbaikar. It is perhaps the most civilised among all the other Indian cities, among all the chaos there is a discipline which keeps the city running. From local trains to the queues for movie tickets there is an order followed by everyone, without which the city would have come down crumbling. This city hardens you and makes a man out of a boy. This city and its spirit is addictive, once you get a hang of it you will never be able to leave it.

I always wanted to go back to Bangalore again or some other city like Pune but now I am glad that I am placed in a company based in Mumbai. I am now really excited about coming back to Mumbai after the two months break for a new beginning...

Random thought

I am returning to my own blog after a long time(I also blog in ADvent). The last three months have been the busiest of my life. Exams, competitions, events and not to mention three trips to Hyderabad kept me really busy. It's not that I didn't try to blog in the mean time, infact there are two unfinished posts saved as draft; I couldn't finish them later as I was not in the same frame of mind in which I started.
For the first time in the last 3 months I am free, our business fest Paragana got over last week and now I have some time before our placement process starts. This period of inactivity is killing me, I had realised before also that I need some work to occupy myself and keep my brain cells excited. Sherlock Holmes used to take morphine injections to keep his brain active when he had no case to solve, for me I guess it is blogging which is helping me right now. May be I should utilize this time to learn the new video making software which I had isatlled last month but couldn't learn it due to time constraints!

The Genius of Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski is one of my favourite poets. A genius and maverick, he is perhaps the most loved poet of our time. Below is the youtube link to my favourite poem The Genius of Crowd by Bukowski: