The Śūnyatā (Openness) Blog

After some long posts, I have again entered a quiet phase in my blogging behavior. We celebrated Lasya's first birthday in India, (she had her first birthday in UK last year) on March 12 and had a get together on Sunday, March 18. Met some family friends after a long gap. Thats what get togethers are for, and this one really served its purpose. Lasya had loads of fun too. One of the guests asked me why I am still with TCS :-) And if I am with TCS, why am I in Bangalore and not in US or UK? lol ! I honestly did not know how to answer the gentleman in brief. And that was not the place to give a long winded answer. Don't worry..neither am I going to give a long winded answer on this blog. In response to the query by our guest, I just shrugged, smiled, and remarked that I am too lazy. He took it as a joke ( It was, at least partly). In any case, it is now time to declare ( and commit my self to the declaration), that I am finally happy about two business ideas that we (me and some ...

Here's the scenario: Like most people these days, you want to own an apartment in a good locality in Hyderabad or Bangalore or any other city (leave Mumbai out of this discussion please!). Going rates for a 3-BR from a reputed builder in Blr or Hyd are around INR 50-60 lakh. If you take a bank loan for 45 lakh for 15-20 years tenure, you will end up paying the bank approx Rs. 1 cr at the current rates of interest. And the life of an apartment can not be more than 25 years, if one looks at the construction quality these days. So, there is every likelihood that it doesn't make sense to you to shell out so much over the next 15-20 years. Instead, you wish to buy an apartment at pre-boom prices or may be even less. Say, between 10-15 lakhs for a 3 BR? Before you leave this site, assuming that I am going to propose some hare brained scheme, here's a disclaimer: I am just going to suggest this plan to you. You could execute this along with your friends.Some groups of friends that...

Blogger Anindita ( check out her blog ..she has a dew fresh writing style) posted a comment asking my thoughts on Chidambaram's tax proposals related to venture capital funds in the new union budget. I feel VC is like any other business activity and should be taxed. In the US, they have a system of creating transparent entities for taxation purposes, which we don't yet have in India. One could argue that VCs should be given tax exemption because the industry is still in a nascent stage in India. In fact, a number of players in the industry seem to feel that way. So, there is a confusion here. The FM has listed software and hardware, but not Internet :-) Some people interpret internet ventures as software plays. Definitely, if there is a Software-As-Service (SaaS) venture out there, they could request the pass thru benefit and should get it. But what about B2C plays (Naukri, Bharat Matrimony, 99 Acres and dozens of other such ventures) that have attracted VC funds? If the VC fu...

Here's a hunch. Most of us know about Warren Buffet, but very few would have actually gone on to the Berkshire Hathaway web site to check out his company. I shamelessly admit that even though I admire the man, I have never thought of visiting his company's web site. On the other hand, I admire Gates, but definitely not some of Microsoft's practices, but I visit their web site quite regularly. Goes to show that information consumption pattern could be quite different from personal opinions. Hmm..interesting. Coming back to Warren Buffet, I read a post on (where else !) Venturewoods today about Buffet's annual letter to his shareholders. As a matter of habit, I generally prefer to read the source than the excerpt. So, I promptly went to the Berkshire Hathaway site and discovered that the site has all of Buffet's letters to shareholders since 1977 ! I was 5 years old in 1977. You can access all those letters from this page. If you have any interest in how the stock m...

Cross-posting my comment on Atanu's blog post today. The post was about OLPC issue and why it will not work in India. Btw, even the HRD ministry has rejected the idea. Atanu had earlier written a lot about this . Srinivas has commented that Atanu has done a backflip on the 'education and technology issue' : Quote begins: The author goes from saying“The OLPC is irrelevant in the context of Indian education. It’s a technological solution, and the problem in India is largely non-technological.” and that “Electronics is neither necessary nor sufficient for education.” to doing a back flip “The solution to India’s educational problems will and must use technology intensively, but it will have little to do with children toting laptops around.” Before finally concluding “OLPC is a costly device for poor countries. It’s going to be a huge waste of money that could be more efficiently spent on other technological solutions such as radio, TV monitors, and DVD players.”. Wish he pai...