India Re-Shining

“On some days, my head is filled with such wild, wonderful and original thoughts that I can barely utter a word……..  on other days, the liquor store is closed.”

So my friends and I were boozing the other day and as is customary in our booze sessions, we find solutions that seek to, what else, “to save the world”! J  I think a lot of us will agree that alcohol usually provides the best answers to life’s greatest problems…. Like Homer Simpson says, “” Alcohol is the root cause and solution to all of the world’s problems”

So last weekend, our daaru-session topic was on the changing India story. 

Now even though I don’t act it, I actually have done my schooling (I have certificates to prove it.. so there!).  And in my school when we studied, we were brought up believing that India’s biggest problem was its population… you know, poverty, droughts and the usual drill…. But today, India’s biggest advantage is its gargantuan population – and the key reason why the world is going ga-ga about India is because of the fact that a huge chunk of us are moving up the social ladder, spending more money, consuming more and more -  and this yummy consumption is at the crux of the awesome India story, with more people buying more and more companies making more, in a mutually beneficial, profitable and harmonious relationship. And as expected, the government and regulators ensure that this consumption is done in a fair, just and profitable manner so that everybody wins.  Savvy? J

So what messes all this up?  Well.. It’s the “leakages”, or grease-money that “oils” the system.  And corruption has really brought everything to a standstill in the last few years – the sensex is down, investment is down, demand is down.  And in spite of Anna Hazare, court orders, license suspensions, what not, … corruption has only become more complicated.  But if you really think about it, corruption is almost always about unaccounted cash - so the trick to tackle corruption then is to make cash accounted for or to completely kill cash.

So last week, the daaru in me n my buddys’ systems came up with a winning solution to this issue – and the solution is – the internet (..tada…! J).

Imagine if all money transactions were done only through the internet via the humble mobile phone, which experts say will be owned by every Indian very soon.  A 1 rupee mint to a 1Cr Bentley could be bought via mobile money and hence accounted.  And you would never need to carry physical cash ever - money gets transferred anywhere via mobile internet and thus be accounted and thus documented.  And who better to accomplish a project of such large scale, complexity and security than our good ol’ world renowned Indian IT guys.   Internet, along with Indian IT, Indian telephony and Indian ingenuity can bring about transparency and accountability to the system, thereby greatly reducing corruption. Sure, I will agree that it is hard to be done but you will agree that it can be done.  

And we already know that the internet is helluva fun (70% of it definitely is ;)) – for example, our lil booze party was conceived by the guys on facebook, then we google mapped the nearby drink joints in indiranagar, went through their menus online through burpp.com on mobile, decided it’d be too expensive, and then agreed to have it at someone’s house.  A quick online poll decided the venue to be my place and then we google mapped again for the wine shops near my place; one dude agreed to get the booze and another agreed to drive him.  Finally, we had a whale of a daaru party and somebody videoed it on mobile, shared it on facebook and showed the world what a superfun weekend we had - and all this via mobile net.

Today the internet is not just fun, its life - we connect, we converse, get info, we buy, we sell, we game, we play, we watch n we do so much more on the internet. And for me, its the 'connect with friends' aspect of the net that make it so priceless in my life.

So if we could use the awesome power of the net to also clean up our system, it’ll only add to the internet’s growing relevance and importance in our lives.........Cool idea, na??? J 

Next week, our booze topic is the Euro crisis.

Drinkers invited. Wanna join???

J

This is an entry for the Vodaphone ''Internet is fun'' contest (find the fun@www.vodafone.in/fun).

Do Follow my blog, Like it and Vote for me...

J