A country that’s bereft of ethics morals and ideologies. That’s the nation we are moving to.

I have never endorsed personal blogging; yet this news was disturbing to the max.

A young chap from IIM working in Indian Oil Corporation (you guessed it- it’s a Government undertaking) decided to do his job by shutting down and sealing a petrol pump because they were adulterating the petrol.

Well, a simple honest man was killed because he was doing his job.

It’s an appeal to all bloggers to link to this story (Rashmi Bansal’s story on her blog ) and give it widest coverage as possible. If you can use your media resources,please do it so. It can be you or me any other day.

Shed your callousness and do something.

P.S. A minor update.

Gaurav Sabnis has written a tribute for Manjunathan. There is another place dedicated to Manju here. It does make me feel bad. Specially when you get to hear the human part of the tragedy. A person killed just because he was honest.

DAMN!

Millions. Millions of customers. BSNL’s dream has grown sour. Why do they offer themselves on the platter to get themselves trashed here time and again?

Currently, if BSNL’s statistics are to be believed, it has roughly around 2 lakh customers. Nowhere near the 10 lakh(or a million) it had promised itself. I can visualise a boardroom full of “intelligent people” with glum faces and power point presentations (if they are smart enough) trying to sugar coat their measly existence. I have no idea as to how can they even justify their existence in the jobs. They should be kicked out for non performance, missing deadlines and crappy phone services. Can anyone and I challange anyone be justifiably proud to say that your telecom company is BSNL? You would be laughed out.

Let me tell you something folks. You can retain customers with services. You need to create a buzz around a product. For example, iPod. It looks good, sounds good and Apple has made a killing on a crappy product.(Useless product because it locks down the songs in it’s own format- I should be able to distribute it free to others, copy or modify the product I have bought). Well, point is that iPod is riding on the brand value it has been able to create for itself.

Similarly, you need to know that a satisfied customer is your best salesman. This blog would “officially endorse” BSNL Broadband if and only if you give what the customers need. Not your crappy Chinese modems (restrictive trade practises) or measly download limits. And then go around the newspapers and burn up tax payer’s money to advertise “new affordable tariffs” (again a gross misrepresentation of facts).

I remember, how I had to “pull the strings” to get the Broadband off ground here. It took several trips, a couple of phone calls, some “considerations” (a euphemism for bribes), a lot of shouting and finally I was saddled with slightly faster than a dial up “broadband”. Frankly, its better than not having anything. So far, it has worked, gone kaput couple of times and mostly I manage to stay online for couple of hours. Of course, the “customer care” is “world class”. Those poor sods are worse than the “son in laws”. Still, I can’t complain much because as a matter of fact and as a customer I have no rights to make these “son in laws” accountable. That reminds me that they owe their allegiance to the “corpse worshippers”(Marxists) who have just added to our miseries all around.

Whew!

I was indeed impressed by Reliance’s scale and grandiosity. Reliance WAS the darling of the media and stock exchange. However, splitting up the family’s fortunes was one of the stupidiest things the US educated MBA graduates could do. It got the whole dirty linen in public glare with the media houses rubbing their hands with glee.

Frankly, Anil Ambani is now facing a huge problem with raising funds- it’s under pressure to go in for an IPO. Would it be advisable to invest in this company? I wouldn’t risk my money here.

The biggest drawback in their strategy is that they are spreading themselves too thin. On one hand, there is imminent launch of Broadband (when?) and on the other hand Anil has moved in his men and money to enter the DTH platform. Arguably his IPTV and DTH are two competing platforms. This just doesn’t gel. (He’s also picked up couple of licences in recently opened FM radio segment).

Take DTH first. Last week saw him sign up the deal for DTH under the brand name “Bluemagic”. According to the license part, the DTH should be non discriminatory, i.e. the channel carried by one should be available to the rival platform. Then, the set top boxes should be interoperable. This gives the real choice to consumer. Assuming that there is nothing wrong here, some dingbat has finally had sense to frame the correct rules. Given the pace at which Anil is amassing content, it would make sense for him to lock it down only through the IPTV platform he proposes to reach out.

Is the DTH a stop gap arrangement till he reaches the critical mass to sustain IPTV and Broadband? The answers aren’t forthcoming. As for the Internet Protocol based Television (IPTV), this technology has been sucessful in couple of countries. Notably US (TiVO) and now spreading across UK. Arguably, there are few sucess stories here. Yet, there is a whole gamut of licensing restrictions, content and backend for teleshopping as planned. There has been no news in the media as to how all this would be managed. Then of course, the cost of the set top boxes and a huge hassle of piracy. What would stop anyone to copy the content, covert it to torrents and seed it via Reliance’s own broadband network? Would the channels be encrypted and scrambled? The whole cost of setting up the retail and distribution outlets, cost of training the ubiquitous “executives” and customer redressals. Including the network to set up for collection of fees. Revenue sharing with the content providers et al. Well, last but not the least- the last mile access; proverbial holy grail of telecom operators.Let’s see how this foray works out in the future. I am beginning to believe that Anil Ambani has hired the same set of retrenched Tata advisors who lead it to doom! See it for yourself. Ever since Tata decided not be the “also ran” of the telecom rat race, it has notched up some impressive gains. Well, it said so according to it’s press circular. I have no way to confirm these claims.

Secondly, Anil Ambani plans to enter the health care segment. Reliance health sciences was providing it’s services for lab diagnostics. I believe that they even had created stem cell lines (hi tech stuff). However, Anil is now eyeing the lucrative health retail sector (pharmacies or even hospitals). Reason? Profits. Obscene profits. The medicines have a mark up price of 1000-5000% . I am not exaggerating. That’s the reason why the other pharma majors are in the hospital segment because the branded drugs gives them a steady source of income.

Coming back to Anil Ambani- he has yet to prove himself in the telecom market. It’s possible that he’s collecting stray bits and the then go for the big bang. It recently introduced 3 years incoming for mobile phones- in response to Tata’s 2 years free incoming. A sad reflection for a company that till recently dictated the terms for affordability and plans that forced all others to cut back prices to retain customers.

The new year may bring forth good news for us customers. If of course the promised 100mbps speeds materialise. His right hand man Amit Khanna is very effusive personality- as so it appears from his columns. I believe that instead of conjuring up dreams, it’s more important to get some action on ground.

Before I end, I must admit that Reliance has an excellent hold over media. Perhaps no one talks about him or his ventures with the crtique it’s needed. He’s inherited the art form from his father who “used to manage the environment”. The exact details elude me but Reliance had forayed in some business publication in around 70′s or 80′s. The venture failed but gave them valuable lessons in media management.

Is Anil planning to be the next media mogul?