The Ignited Indian

“I would like to talk to you about an exciting opportunity. It may only take thirty minutes of your time to explain, but it has the potential to transform your life” the opening statement of any person who would like to fool you with an “opportunity” in a Multi-Level Marketing scheme, holding out the hope that if you work hard, you can be your own “BOSS”. You can take control of your life, start your own “business” and help your family.                                   Multi – Level marketing: Multi-level marketing, also being run in the name of network marketing, direct selling, referral marketing, pyramid selling, etc., is used by many number of companies in order to increase their sales. The participants/agents would not be paid any salary, instead these organizations provide the agents with income from two ways; one, as the profit/commission from selling the products directly to the cu...

Metro rail isn’t a luxury, but is a mere necessity. F or most of the cities worldwide metro is the most preferable mass transport system as it offers travel-friendly environment and provides feasible solutions to various challenges which occur in the process of the expansion of the city. Hyderabad Metro! The 16,375 Crore rupee megaproject is the world’s largest project carried on in the PPP (Public Private Partnership) model, where an amount of 1,458 Crore rupees is granted by the Government to bridge the viability gap. When commenced, Hyderabad’s Metro Rail project will become the world’s most advanced metro rail system using state of the art technology and resources in Station Planning, Train control Systems, Signaling systems, Track monitoring, MEP, and Communication systems, covering a total of 72 KMs in three traffic corridors with 57 Trains. The first phase from Nagole to Miyapur runs for 30 KMs via Ameerpet...

The political scenario of Tamil Nadu has become a giant Circus that every clown sees a job opportunity. Kamal Hassan is a great actor (other than occasionally shoddy pieces like the Mumbai Express, etc.,) and there is no doubt in that. But, he has zero experience running a social/political movement. Same for Rajnikanth and other players in the league. Over 70 years, MGR and Jayalalitha were the only actors who succeeded in Tamil politics and both are unique. It would be futile for other actors to have the same ambition. MGR created an aura for decades (always the good guy (except for the occasional rumors) and peppered films with motivational songs). He spent many years with the Dravidian movement, where he learnt the basics of politics and growing a strong connect with public at large. Even with all that, it was only the untimely death of his leader Annadurai that gave the room for him and Karunanidhi to break out. Jayalalitha tagged behind MGR and used the power vacuum left ...

Elections are often won by convincing the people in the middle - the swing vote. These people are not fanatically attached to either side, but the moderates who can switch votes from one party to an another. In most state elections the past 2 years, the opposition parties were preaching the choir [getting applauses in JNU, The Hindu and other comfort zones] rather than actually trying to win over the people in the middle. First, they have to cut out the personal attacks on Modi. Sonia Gandhi pulled the unthinkable in 2004 not by attacking Vajpayee’s integrity, but by attacking his policies. Vajpayee was highly respected and it would have been a suicide to attack his personality. Rather she talked about how the poor were not cared as much in a “shining India”. Criticism with a kernel of truth would hurt a lot. In the same way, Modi is highly popular not just with BJP but with those in the middle. For the people to hear your criticism, you have to deliver it with respect and sincer...

Sounds like Karnataka vs Rest of India.. isn’t it? The fact is, and music lovers all over the country know it, Hindustani and Carnatic are types of music that are not only different, they reflect the North South divide which is already apparent in all walks of life. However, for those who do not know, this could be a fascinating journey into a world of music. Let us find out the major differences between Hindustani and Carnatic music. Indian classical music has a long history and westerners think of it as Hindustani music, which is not true. A different style of music has continued to evolve with Hindustani music in the South of India known as Carnatic music. Though both styles are similar in that one raga per composition is used and tala is also restricted to one, there are many differences. It is a common perception that Hindustani music has had a lot of influences from Persian music because of hundreds of years of Islamic rule in North India. But if one were to take into account ...

The bulls have climbed the graphs so high, that we need a telescope to look at them. Or so feels everyone observing the markets reach new heights every day. Compared to a bear market, this bullish run is a good problem to have but nevertheless, a problem. For the cautious, this daily relentless surge causes anxiety as one is really not able to put a finger on the real reason for this euphoria. Everyday a jump over 200 points is good. But too much of everything, even the good can be harmful. This isn’t a pessimistic view, but just a cautious look at the reason for markets’ happiness. The reasons for markets being so excited majorly is the lowering inflation. With WPI inflation was observed at a record low at 0.9%. Retail inflation cooled off to a historic low of 1.54% for the past three months. CPI has been low consistently. This led the market to think that RBI may cut the rates in the next policy review meeting scheduled in August. But this seems highly unlikely, as the RBI ...

With the ring of the bell by the Prime Minister at midnight, India’s biggest taxation reform rolls out in all its royalty, as a result of consistent efforts of the Indian administration for more than a decade. The experience of over 160 countries that have implemented the GST is that GST provides for a simpler tax collection and makes it very hard to evade taxes. For legal businesses it makes running their concerns easy and also reduces the competitive disadvantage they traditionally had from tax evading competitors. Like any change in tax structure in any economy, this will result inflation in the short term. The prices of most products and services are expected to go up over the next one year. That has been the case of most countries when they adopted GST. The fear of inflation is one reason that successive Indian governments have been going slow on GST implementation, so there never was a better time than this for India to rollout the GST as the inflation has been decreasing f...

In Mahabharata, we have the story of Lord Krishna who was troubled by the traditions of the gopalas, involving the offerings to Indra. He prevented them from doing the traditional sacrifice instead replacing that with more practical deeds, angering the gods. When Indra tried to punish the gopalas with rain and thunder, Bhagwan lifted the Govardhana hill and provided the lesson to gods as well as humans: Traditions need to be constantly reevaluated to make sure they are relevant. Again Ramanuja, one of the glorious saints of Hinduism, broke tradition by uttering the name of Narayana to everyone who may hear it. His guru explicitly told him not to reveal the secret mantra to anyone. In 1830s, Raja Ram Mohan Roy with his Brahmo Sabha moment, fought for abolishment of atrocious practices such as Sati. In the 1930s, Rajaji, the premier of Madras presidency, issued a proclamation to allow Dalit entry into Tamil Nadu's temples. Many Hindus were aghast by the move, but none of th...

As the nature is playing a spoilsport here, it is a very tricky problem. There are many factors involved, and there is no single solution to address it. The primary solution to our water issues is in fixing what we eat. Contrary to popular myths, it is not our domestic water usage or industrial water usage for Coke and other industries that form the primary water consumption. It is agriculture. According to the figures released by Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UNO, 91% of all the available fresh water is used in agriculture, and this has not changed much over time ( http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/countries_regions/IND/ ). Producing 1Kg of rice requires 2,497 litres of water, and producing 1Kg Meat needs 15,415 litres of water.( https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-much-water-food-production-waste ). On the other hand, what we eat has changed dramatically over the years. We have been consuming a lot of water intensive foods of recent. We ...