Independent Hindi Movie - Chappad Faad Ke

My friend and neighbor - Aman Boparai has been working diligently over the last 4 years on his dream project - an independent hindi comedy based in USA. A Software Project Manager by day, and director/producer/cameraman/editor by night - it's a remarkable fruition of his relentless pursuit and a great study of the multicultural environment we live in.

You can get more details on his website http://www.cineglobal.com - be sure to look at the trailer and songs. I would really appreciate if you could help spread the word and mail out this link to all your South Asian friends and others who may be interested in an offbeat hindi comedy.

Thanksgiving and Turkey - a holiday classic based on a sound economic foundation!

Like most traditions, this one has a sound economic foundation - Turkey was cheaper by the pound back in the 18th and 19th centuries and it had little other use. Beef was expensive - cows were more valuable for dairy products than for meat and chicken laid eggs.

Well, hope you all had a great Turkey day.

Service sector jobs - the new panacea for the Indian masses

Here's a well researched report from Wall Street Journal on the growing impact of the service sector jobs - particularly retail jobs - but it raises another question - one reported some time back in Fortune - namely, the demise of small retailers.

Yes, it seems that the coming of big retail to India will generate a lot of service jobs - but perhaps a lot of these service jobs shall be the only options left for small retailers and their employees. The real question still remains - is this trend of service jobs in India just a lateral trend - a shift from unorganized, small business sector to corporate, large business? Not that there's anything wrong with this - India is perhaps a couple of decades behind other Asian countries where this has already happened. However, a deeper analysis of the economic impact is required before we start raising hopes of millions of Indian masses.

What do you think?

The Indian $2,500 car - 30 years too late

The time for a people's car in India was way back in the 70's. At that time, a genuine attempt but by a corrupt political administration resulted in a prototype - kinda based on the Citroen and Volkswagen model after the second world war. However, it really came to fruition in the mid-eighties when Indian government collaborated with Japanese car maker - Suzuki to start the largest car manufacturing plant in India. The price at that time was maybe around $2,000 - but the real wages at the time were very low - making it seem like a princely sum.

Anyway, had we built a cheap car then our economy would have turned out different. But hindsight is always 20-20 :-) Building a $2,500 car now is nothing but a time bomb - India, unlike US has very little oil reserves - almost all crude oil is imported - making it very vulnerable to oil price changes. An economic policy with incentives for energy efficient transportation - in form of mass transit, electric and hybrid, etc. would be critical for India to keep its momentum. I think we should tax the hell out of all cars - including the Tata $2,500 car and put that money in cheap, heavily subsidized mass transit.