How Lack of Green Cover is harming us [India Vs Others]

In June 2010, on my way back to India, I flew to Delhi from Chicago. While looking down from the airplane, I realized that I couldn’t see anything clearly at all from the window.

Part of it could have been because most of the city was dusty by being dug up for Commonwealth Games, and maybe it was also due to scorching summer and lack of humidity in the air. But a major role was simply played by the pollution in the air.

That made me wonder, if there was so much dust in the atmosphere, wouldn’t everyone be inhaling it all the time?

And with improper enforcement of anti-pollution laws (state of Yamuna clearly shows the lack of it), there are bound to be many hazardous pollutants in the air too. And all of them simply, pretty much forcibly, just thrust into our lungs.

So why are people not doing anything about it? I think that’s primarily because it does not really have a political will behind it, and that’s because it difficult for people to tangibly notice the impact of the polluted environment on them on a daily basis. If one entirely lives ‘in’ a polluted city with nothing to compare to, that becomes the ‘default setting’ and the ‘new normal’.

One of the most obvious solutions is to plant more trees. It only commonsensical that trees will help keep the air a little cleaner with absorbing Carbon Dioxide and release Oxygen (Yes we learned that in 3^rd standard).

Here is an article written about the benefits of having a green city. But whether we need to plant more trees is not the question, because that is already widely accepted.

The question is whether we are planting enough, and whether we are planting themappropriately. To answer these questions, I thought it best to compare cities in India with cities in Western Europe and US.

Thanks to Google maps and Jing technologies, I was able to put the following pictures here. I have tried to compare apples with apples by comparing smaller cities and the suburbs of bigger cities (where real estate is not super expensive and rare) and by keeping the same map zoom-in level.

In other words, I considered on those places where people do have the resources to plant more trees, and tried to compare number of trees per unit area.

Here are the Indian cities and suburbs:

Lucknow, India

Hyderabad suburbs, India

Nerul, Navi Mumbai, India

Noida, India

Notice how in our Indian cities and suburbs, buildings are almost completely stacked together. With no breathing space at all!

Such densely populated places provide absolutely no respite from pollution, desalination of soil, and hotter temperatures. It also provides almost negligible rainwater retention (and contributes to dropping water tables and water scarcity).

I could also notice a significant divide between East Delhi suburbs (commonly known as Trans-Yamuna) and Central and South Delhi. Central and South Delhi areas were significantlygreener, making me wonder if there such a huge difference in living conditions should be acceptable by people! But then again, it is not everyday that you compare how many trees you have (or can afford to have) in your locality versus another locality.

Here are cities from US and Europe:

The first picture is of a Chicago suburb called Scahumburg. It has a similar profile to that of Noida in the sense that many people live in Schaumburg and work in Chicago.

Schaumburg, US

Nice, France

Tooting, London, UK

What is clearly visible is that greenery in the captured areas is far less for Indian cities, no matter where they are, when compared to suburbs and cities in US or Europe.

This is not a research study, so I am sure the sample data I am looking at is flawed after a point. But I definitely wanted to put up some comparison between what Indian cities are doing versus the ‘better’ cities of developed world of US and Europe.

Given this, I wanted to address at least one problem: That of level of awareness in India about the shoddy state of the green cover in Indian cities.

Here is a great report on a comparative study on Asian cities on many factors, including environmental governance. In most parameters, Indian cities fared as average or below average in comparison to other comparable Asian cities. Keep in mind that this comparison did not consider other American and European cities.

Green City Index

Delhi, by various accounts (click here) has been bragging about being one of the greenest capitals in the world. I could not find any proper research report confirming this fact, so I am at least unconvinced that this is entirely true.

At any rate, even if that is the case, the distribution of green cover is very, very lopsided. This leaves a huge chunk of population deprived of greenery and exposes them to pollutants, less water and puts their health at tremendous risk.

On the national level, only about 20% of land mass in India is covered with forests, as compared to 33% in the US, 30% over the world, 34% in Canada, and 22% in China.

There are causes of tremendous concern about overall forest cover too, as shown by this report in nature.com, which says that illegal deforestation are causing significant harm to Indian forests. The Hindu also noted in this report that India’s forest cover has declined since 2009. Deforestation in the Gangetic plane resulted in a loss of $2 Billion according to this report.

For further reading, have a look at this report from Forest Survey of India

I think the green cover is especially critical in city areas given the concentration of pollutants, and the concentration of population (Mumbai has 20000+ people living per square kilometer!). Maybe we should start from where we do have control: Our backyard, and then move up from there.

I think all residential societies must work together to provide as much greenery as possible. Otherwise the average life expectancy in our cities will continue to be low and maybe drop lower with new industrialization and growth happening…

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Cloud Services killing Pen Drive / Storage Devices Market?

Storage devices have come a long way from the ancient times of 8 Kb Floppy disks to the first Hard disk drives to Pen drives storing data as little as 256MB.

Today with the shrinking physical size of flash memory devices and the Solid State Drive revolution, devices are beginning to store more and more data within comparatively smaller space. The true evolution of storage devices still lies in the Cloud Storage revolution.

Days when users will have unlimited access to endless storage that is both portable and permanent is still a dream around the horizon but if firms like Dropbox and Box.net have their way, it is definitely approaching fast.

The real question however is whether Cloud Storage will completely eliminate the need for pen drives, Memory cards and other such storage devices?

Pen drives and Storage device rage

Pen drives and other storage devices have been growth drivers for several online retailers recently. It’s no surprise that most e-retailing stores get first time users from using coupons tied to memory cards or by using limited time deals on these devices.

Pen drives have the quality of being low cost but long term investments for most users. The trend has been continuing upwards with no sign of abatement so far. The difference is a growing demand for higher capacity pen drives with exceedingly high demand for 8-32GB pen drives and memory cards.

The trend looks set so far. However pen drives do suffer from the draw backs of being fragile to accidents and of being typically virus prone. Although the Pen drive is portable most users also find themselves absent when they most need them.

Growth Personal/Private Cloud Services

Most people prefer to have unlimited and uninterrupted access to their data. This has already been proven with the rise of Google Mail, image storage facilities such as Flickr and Picasa and more recently the rise of personal cloud services such as Drop Box, Box.net, and SkyDrive et al.

Dropbox is perhaps one of the first and most popular in this sector. The humble start up that was on the verge of an Apple Buy out in 2002 has come a long way with over 50 million users. Personal Cloud services are growing in exponential manner with more players entering the market including Apple with their iCloud and Google with Google Drive.

Smartphones and the rise of Cloud Storage adoption

The most significant driver for sale of memory cards has been the growth in Digital cameras and Smartphones recently. While Smartphones may be slowly eroding the sale of Digital cameras, their rise is definitely good news for the memory device manufacturers. However recent trends in the smartphone industry do make one stand up and take notice of the Cloud storage services.

The Smartphone industry today drives around the success of Marquee brands and models. Be it the Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S3 or the offerings from HTC and Sony. In most cases, premium smartphones do not currently come with the option for expansion of memory through micro SD cards. Phones such as Sony Xperia S, HTC One S, iPhone 5, etc. are packed with high internal memory space as it is and seldom require more space for users to store additional data.

However, Users do fear that even a space of 16GB or 32GB will not suffice their growing data consumption needs.

Smartphone companies have now aligned with Cloud storage providers to provide additional storage facility. HTC having tied up with Drop Box, Sony with Box.net and Apple adding the iCloud feature for the users for its own products. With this new trend, one may wonder if Memory cards as we know it may become a thing of the past.

Cloud Storage: The path forward

Cloud Storage has long been touted as the saviour of modern industry and growing data needs of enterprises. It seems now the same principle applies to the average user as well. With users increasingly taking pictures, downloading games, movies, apps and much more, Data consumption has come a long way.

Another key impact area for this data is its availability across devices. While most of this is today taken care by the use of transferable data storage devices such as Pen drives and memory card, the real end result should be Cloud. Cloud Storage facilities give the user freedom of access to data anywhere and on any device. The only limitation today to this is the lack of proper internet facility and the defragmentation of Cloud services and hardware ecosystems. For example, iCloud is available only for Apple devices, SkyDrive only for Microsoft and so far.

The real end result is to have a seamless Cloud storage experience for devices across devices of different devices similar to Open Source Applications and Software. We may still be far away from the days when devices have ready access to cloud storage across all devices.

Cloud Storage makes greater sense in general for long term data such as Pictures, Worksheets, etc. than for active data such as Apps and Games. However, this trend may soon change with growing internet speeds and faster hard disks as users will be able to access more live data without need for caching or storage within the device.

Data in Cloud is still accessible slower to the data stored in memory card. The Solution would be to use internal memory for games and apps and use the Cloud to store all other kinds of data.

Summary

Pen drives and Memory cards are going to be relevant in the near future. However with growing Cloud Service adoption, tie ups between hardware providers and Cloud service providers and shortages in the silicon memory devices, Cloud services definitely will be the future for most of the data storage needs. T

he pen drive and memory card may go the way of the Floppy Disk and CD in days to come.

We may still be 5 years away from that day.

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Delhi Court Frowns on Money-based Online Games: Where will the Gamers Head?

A startup internet firm built by IIT Delhi alumni has obtained from a Delhi court an interpretation of Article 19(1)(g) of the Indian constitution which allows every citizen the right to “practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business”.

The company is planning to offer six online games – Chess, Billiards, Rummy, Poker, Bridge and Snooker.

The court advised that online game sites which charge participants money to make up the winning prizes, even if the games require skill, can fall under the category of illegal gambling in some states.

Based on this ruling, gaming sites and web-hosting companies that allow them to exist could be tucked away in the shady corners of the internet. They will have a hard time getting protection from the Constitution if they need to take the legal recourse, and banks will be entitled to turn their backs away from such sites.

Cracking down on the Gamblers

It is not just the law that frowns upon gambling.

For long, internet services such as Google AdWords and AdSense have strictly prohibited the use of gambling in advertisements and website content.

India has been known to allow a good measure of freedom on the internet, but is also reputed to summarily wipe off websites that are deemed to be troublemakers, as is indicated by a report sent out by The OpenNet Initiative.

Websites are taken down for “security reasons”, but online gambling is known to continue mostly unchecked, in spite of repeated associations being made between this activity and security issues.

Officially, gambling is allowed at casinos in Goa and Sikkim, apart from betting at horse races that take place in parts of the country.

Away from the radar of the police, online gambling is rampant, contributing to the $60billion industry that thrives on mostly illegal activities. One of the laws restricting gambling and particularly targeting games that do not need skill, the archaic The Public Gambling Act of 1867,threatens that anyone found in a gaming house “shall be liable to a fine not exceeding one hundred rupees” or a prison term “not exceeding one month”. As for persons found running the gaming houses, the punishment is a fine of up to two hundred rupees or imprisonment of up to three months.

In Conclusion

There have been no instances of major crackdowns on illegal online gambling, with calls being made to ponder over the complex and possibly outdated laws that attempt to control these actions.

Going by the recommendation of the Delhi court on this subject, will organizers of online games tend to be extra careful? Or, will they take advantage and call for their rivals to be taken down from the internet?

The most probable situation is that the intertia will continue until there is a major overhaul of gambling, foreign exchange and information technology laws that look into this subject.

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Tablet Sale Triples, E-commerce Sites Emerge as Primary Sales Channels [Report]

E-commerce portals like Flipkart.com, Junglee.com and Snapdeal.com have become strong sales and marketing channels for tablets in India, suggests a report by research and advisory services firm Convergence Catalyst.

Traditional OTC retail outlets continue to be the dominant source of sales however market trends suggest that e-commerce websites are garnering increased consumer attention. The report estimates that about 10% of the total number of tablets sold in India are bought from e-commerce websites. These portals are either direct E-tailers like Flipkart.com, online aggregators like Junglee.com or online marketplace like Snapdeal.com.

The emergence of these websites as more than just shopping portals make them thriving hubs for buyers as well as online window shoppers. E-commerce websites are access points to product information and more importantly, user reviews.

Consumers are also using these websites to compare prices, avail discounts and take advantage of various payment / delivery options.

Convergence Catalyst reports that a majority of tablet purchases from e-commerce portals are made by urban users. Their purchases are being driven by the need to be mobile along with increased connectivity requirements for web browsing.

Most of these sales are for tablets priced around or below Rs. 10,000 (sub $200).

Manufacturers like Micromax, BSNL, iBall, HCL and Karbonn have on offer decent devices in the sub Rs. 10,000 range. From 3G connectivity to games and movies, budget tablets are giving end consumers the option to own feature packed devices which deliver better user experience than similarly priced smartphones.

The urban Indian consumer seems to be biting the tablet bug as Business Standard reported that tablets sales have surpassed netbook sales in FY2012. Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT) estimates that 3.5 lakh tablets were sold in FY11-12.

From the perspective of an e-commerce website, higher tablet sales contribute towards increased revenue. With offers, deals and advertisements, these portals can potentially upsell products of higher value or that of a different brand.

For example when visitors go to Amazon.com, the world’s largest e-tailer, they are greeted by a display titled ‘The All-New Kindle Family’ featuring the new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Paperwhite. Whether or not it converts into a sale, this display is hard to go past and potential tablet buyers may very well click on it to ‘check out’ features of the tab.

A preliminary look at Flipkart.com’s analytics on Alexa reveals that tablet related search queries are some of the top traffic drivers. Keywords like ‘micromax funbook’ are a regular feature in the list of Top Queries. With a 27% bounce rate over a period of 3 months, nearly 7 out of 10 visitors stay on to browse through multiple pages within the website.

These stats have since long established a base for marketing and advertising opportunities. From front page product displays to featured listings, strategically placed marketing attempts can go a long way in brand promotion and subsequent sales.

Manufacturers would be keen to push their products through this channel and take advantage of the growing Indian e-commerce marketplace. Jayanth Kolla of Convergence Catalyst sees this current market trend as a ‘win-win situation’ for e-commerce portals, tablet manufacturers and end consumers.

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Klip.in – Makes Shopping a Social Activity…

There are plethora of Ecommerce sites in India currently, with the likes of Flipkart, Jabong, ebay & few others leading the roost. Even with many sites getting launched and this space getting crowded, I believe that Indian online market is far from saturated. In such a situation making a mark for yourself is a bit difficult, but a new Social Ecommerce platform – Klip.in aims to do that.

Look & Feel

When I opened Klip.in the first thing that caught my attention was the beta tag that hung there. It is a work in progress and as a beta Klip.in gives a good first impression. The UI is not overbearing which can not be said about some of the other shopping sites. On top is a search option (very necessary in such sites) and also the option to register both independently and via facebook. There is also the option to check out without registering. It’s not an option people at Klip.in will want (everyone wants regular users) but it’s nice to see it there. Also, there is the option to Klip (clip) an item in your personal catalogue. This is the social aspect of the site.

There are two questions that come to my mind when I see a new merchant website. First is what do they have that others don’t or why should I use it the first time?

Second, what will make me come back to it again?

These questions are very important because like an email, why would a person want a new one when the old one is working.

The Differentiator?

Klip.in differentiates itself from others by offering by making shopping very social. Not only can visitors make a purchase, but also “Klip” the Items and also rate it. The more klips an item has it automatically becomes a more craved item. (Something akin to popularity and wishlist combined in flipkart). These klips can also be grouped or bunched together to create a “Klipboard” of products. For example: the most popular klipboard currently is of – “Best Books of Decade”, which puts together bunch of most popular books.

Visitors can join these klipboard for their future references or to make purchases at later stage. Klipping is encouraged by giving points for each klipping and these can be redeemed in purchase.

The Good

The social angle is very good and as more people get involved and it gets refined, it can become a trusted source of reviews and ratings. You can check who is klipping what and make your decisions accordingly.

One might even find something that they might not have searched for but was in a group of klips they were checking out. Also, groups can be used for discussions like forums and can be very useful in making a purchase. There is a leaderboard where you can find yourself if you have enough reviews and klips under your belt.

Books are having really good discounts.

The Bad

It was not exactly unexpected but still disappointing to see the lack of variation of products in the catalogue. I searched for Xperia S and in result it showed me three options- Nokia C6-00, SE Xperia Ray and Xperia Mini pro.

Besides this as well, the catalogue needs a bit of more comprehensiveness which I think will come with time. (As the beta tag is shed). Also, the price of electronics (mobiles especially) looked steep to me than other sites.

I guess as the time passes, these aspects should definitely improve!

The Weird

It had little discount on electronics and yet each price was crossed to repeat the same in the bottom line. It was not pleasant as UI is concerned and hopefully will be removed soon. If there is no discount there is no need for uglying the interface…

In the end, the question comes, why would I want to use to in lieu of the plethora of options available?

Well, the concept of klip is good and “klipping” is something that will help people explore new products that they might have missed otherwise. For it to work though they need users who will come if the product they want is available at a cheaper or equivalent price.

Klip.in has the potential but can they actually harness it; that is something to be seen.

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Google Launches Umbrella Site to Support Aspiring Entrepreneurs

One of the top needs of budding entrepreneurs is that of a strong ecosystem to nurture them.

Google has kept that in mind for long, and has now launched an umbrella site Google for Entrepreneurs on September 24, 2012.

According to their blog post announcing this move, the initiative is meant to bring dozens of worldwide entrepreneurship support programs under one roof.

Google was born on September 4, 1998, with the official aim “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. Most of Google’s brilliance in the last 14 years of its existence has centered around its search engine, making the company one of the biggest startup success stories of all time. Now, few people will believe that the internet giant’s global initiatives to bond aspiring entrepreneurs are bearing little fruit.

Google for Entrepreneurs Week

Google is currently conducting its first annual Google for Entrepreneurs Week, led by Googlers in 26 cities spread over 13 countries, including one which took place at Gurgaon, India. The company is going to work with several partners to provide training and mentorship to help motivate youngsters to scale up startup ideas.

Another key mentorship project, the Jagriti Yatra (Awakening Journey), has been met with positive reactions in India. This is a cross-country train journey carried out by hundreds of youngsters selected for showing adequate entrepreneurial promise. Several stopovers are planned to meet key personalities involved in changing India. The fifth edition of this journey is scheduled to begin in late December this year and end in mid-January, 2013.

Stepping Out of One’s Comfort Zone

In an older blog post, I had pondered over the possibility of IT empowering the rural masses in India. One of the key factors that will make the difference in that aspect is the boldness shown by individuals to leave their comfort zones, and any program to motivate budding businesspersons must need to strongly focus on that.

Google clearly has that in mind, going by the fact that its Jagriti Yatra focuses on youth from smaller towns and villages in India. Additionally, their latest move Google for Entrepreneurs is designed to only connect and consolidate existing projects such as the train journey with others that aim to boost similar efforts.

Some skeptics may not be happy with Google trying to spread its wings in yet another area of life and business, but the fact probably remains that the search giant will continue to maintain the immense respect it commands in today’s Information Age.

What do you think about Google’s initiative to help aspiring entrepreneurs?

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Trak.in HP Make IT Matter Contest Winners [Final Bumper Prize announcement]

We have finally come to the end of this 4 week Trak.in HP Make IT Matter Contest.

I am glad that trak.in readers participated in this contest in big numbers. We got close to 1000 participants and we have had 20 weekly winners in previous 3 weeks.

It has been quite grueling for us to choose the winners given the large number of participation, but I want to assure you that all the winners chosen on merit and selection has been completely fair.

I am happy to announce that we now have our winners for 4th and final week. And, we also have the luckiest winner of all – The one who has won a cool HP Probook Laptop!

And the Lucky contestant who has won the HP Probook is – Siddharth Vyas – Guess the Ganesh has blessed him!

And we have other lucky winners as well for this week. 

No.	Participant Name	Prize
1	Madhu Khaitan	HP Ink Advantage 2060
2	Bani Brata Saha	HP 4 GB Pen Drive
3	Sandeep Mehta	HP 4 GB Pen Drive
4	Harish Kumar	HP 4 GB Pen Drive
5	Ajay Khaitan	HP 4 GB Pen Drive
6	Anil Chaudhary	HP 4 GB Pen Drive

Congratulations to Madhu Khaitan and other winners as well.

Please note that all the winners will be contacted directly via phone / email IDs. All the prizes will be released after the team has a phone conversation with winners.

If you have any questions, please mail us or let us know in the comments section.

Once again, thank you for participating in the contest in such big numbers and Congratulations to all the winners as well!

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