Month: January 2010

I wrote this a little over a year ago.

India of 2008 in the mobile space is quite similar to Japan of 1998. And into that Japan is when NTT Docomo launched its i-mode service in February 1999. In less than 3 years, 30 million subscribers were using i-mode.

What are the similarities between 2008 India and 1998 Japan? (Here, my focus is on the saturated, urban markets.)

– Mobile is at the centre of people’s lives.For many, mobile is the only interactive device.
– Lack of PC installed base handicaps Internet growth.
– Broadband is available only in pockets.
– There are few value-generating services on the PC (fixed line) Internet.
– Services are on the mobile are still limited due to operator control.

It was in this world that NTT Docomo, Japan’s leading mobile operator with a majority share of the market, launched i-mode.  The focus of i-mode was on mobile data services. Content providers got 91% of the end user price, with Docomo taking the other 9% forproviding billing services. In addition, Docomo retained the full data transfer charges that were paid by subscribers. It also created the entire ecosystem – including that of handsets and key anchor service providers.

This is the revolution that India needs on the data side.

This week’s links:

• A Big-Picture look at Google, Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo: from the New York Times. “It’s evident that Google, Microsoft, Apple, and even Yahoo are now competing in numerous different business arenas.”
• Edge Question:”How Has The Internet Changed The Way You Think?” Answers from some of the world’s best.
• Start-ups need to Focus: by Ed Sim. “It is always hard for a startup to enter a market with an end-to-end product positioning as most customers expect large companies to cover this territory.  What most customers expect from startups is innovation and breakthrough offerings, not end-to-end solutions. “
• Ambedkar’a Desiderata:by Ramachandra Guha in Outlook, on India’s 60 years as a Republic. His last para is telling: “The times we live in, and the expectations engendered by them, call for leadership that is rather better than mediocre. The men and women who now rule India—whether from the centre or in the states—seem concerned, above all, with survival: the survival in his present post of an individual politician; the survival at the apex of the organisation of a particular family; the survival in government of a particular party. To plausibly and successfully redeem the ideals of the republic, however, this shall not be enough.”
• India’s Local Newspapers: from India Knowledge@Wharton. “At a time when newspapers are folding around the world, India’s media scene is admirably buoyant. Why? Many experts give credit to the country’s burgeoning rural, local-language newspaper business…But these publications face their own growth challenges, including India’s relatively low literacy rate, poor infrastructure and the increasing penetration of television in rural areas.”

A new year, a new BJP President, and a new beginning for Friends of BJP! We hope to continue the work we began almost exactly a year ago in getting Middle India more engaged with politics, public policy and governance. We also hope to provide the right inputs to the BJP as it seeks to recover lost ground and build a new foundation to challenge the Congress in the battle for minds in the coming years.

Here are the three questions we wanted to address first:

1. What are the 2-3 big issues that will present the most challenges and opportunities for India?
2. Which ideas/issues would resonate most with the youth in this decade — those issues which will fire them up to actively work towards their own and India’s development?
3. Which matters should we focus on in the next 10 years? These should be achievable and must be important for India’s development?

Look forward to your inputs. I will publish my answers on Monday.

The focus should be on creating Friends of BJP Chapters in India’s top 50 urban centres (along with a Secretariat in Mumbai and Delhi) to manage ongoing activities, to drive conversation and expand the member network. The goal has to be to win the hearts and minds of youth and professionals in urban India by giving them a platform and a voice. For this, there is a need to start engaging with citizens at the local level. There are three areas to focus on:

• Engagement with Elected representatives: Repeat electoral success can be ensured by enhancing the engagement between elected representatives and the civil society. In order to achieve the objective it is proposed that

a)      A mechanism is institutionalized to seek inputs, advice and criticism from people through the FBJP website for each BJP MP. This should be shared with the concerned MP and relevant Party leadership for follow up.

b)      Consequently there should be on the ground engagement once in three months between the elected representatives (MP/MLA/Corporator) with the electorate. This will help create a two way process. It must be remembered that technology can at best complement but not replace the need for constant face-to-face interaction. A digital interface through the website will help get contact details and build profile of the constituency, which can help build “institutional memory” and subsequently used for micro targeting.

A Constituency-wise database can help in driving voter registration, taking up local issues, assessing the strength of ideological movement etc. Any work of this sort needs to be done in close co-ordination with local BJP units wherever possible.

• Constituency-level Grassroots PIN-code Network: Create a network of engaged people on the ground in every locality of urban India. Think of this as “Networks and Conversations” where people meet every so often to discuss issues, and meet others like them – discussions can be organised on a monthly basis in a co-ordinated way across India. The goal should be to have an engaged database of 100+ people in every urban constituency of India. [Note: The focus needs to be especially greater on the four states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal where the BJP does not have a significant presence.]

• Onground Activism: A couple of key issues relevant to sections of urban India need to be identified, and then need to be vigorously pursued at all levels. Two possible areas to begin with: National Security and Education Policy.

 Tomorrow: Three Questions

2.       Communication

The BJP needs to effectively communicate its thinking, ideology and activities better to people in India and outside. Media management has been often highlighted as one of the areas of deficiencies in the party’s communications. Members from Friends of BJP (along with the proposed Think Tank) can help build a better media outreach strategy using new media, offline distribution solutions, etc. We need to look for solutions which are “faster, better, cheaper” and can get the message across to the masses. Some possibilities:

• Innovative use of online (Net and mobile), complemented by offline distribution of CDs/DVDs, columns in print, TV appearances, etc.
• Direct 1:1 interaction with key members from the media

This strategy will only use contemporary mediums to increase outreach and is in no way a replacement to the grassroots movement. Public education is absolutely essential  in a democratic setup. How the average citizen perceive the important issues, how informed he or she is about them, how they feel about them – all of these matter because public policy is formed as a distillation of how the public feels about them. Affecting change then is than a matter of changing public perception and that argues for a very effective campaign for public education. (Public education must be understood here as making the public informed about issues that matter in the larger scheme of things.)

Tomorrow: Engagement

The BJP needs to start winning the intellectual game once again. It was the party of big, bold ideas for India. It must reclaim the centre-right space in Indian politics. We need to shift from the politics of identity to the politics of aspiration, recognising that the (urban) Indian voter has changed and moved ahead.  The ideas have to also instill a sense of confidence and pride in people about their country and culture, and at the same time be socially inclusive.  Rebuilding this intellectual foundation will require a concerted effort along multiple activity streams:

• Create a Policy Foundation: Create a Think Tank for new ideas with a right-of-centre thrust, on a range of economic and social issues in the country. The Foundation will propose, educate and engage with policy makers (elected representatives and members of bureaucracy) with the objective of guiding public policy, legislation and delivery, and influencing public opinion. Its support in matters of policy and governance will be driven by India’s long-term requirement and not short-term opportunism. The Foundation will be guided by the principles of liberal democracy, free enterprise (keeping in mind the interests of wider sections of society), social inclusion, robust defence policy and nationalism and will deliver India-oriented research. The Foundation will have a physical presence in Delhi and a virtual presence for wider dissemination and ongoing engagement. It can also encompass a “political research and analysis wing” which will do a psephological study of historical voting trends (and more). This Think Tank will also host seminars every six month on contemporary issues facing the Nation and invite subject matter experts, members from the Government and beauracracy to come and participate in order to find India centric solutions. This will help create influence and allow the right wing movement to regain the intellectual space besides influencing policy.
• Create Policy Teams: The Think tank with inputs from members of the civil society and right leaning intellectuals can provide distill inputs to the party leadership and its Cells on various issues of governance.
• Build Strong Bridges: There needs to be formalised bi-annual interactions for key members across various groups with the BJP leadership. This will help ensure ideological bonding and check deviations.

Tomorrow: Communication

A few months ago, a couple of us (Amit Malviya and me) had put together a note on taking further the Friends of BJP (FBJP) initiative we had started almost exactly a year ago. I am outlining the ideas in a series of four posts this week.

The country needs an effective alternate formation that puts India First. The 2009 Parliamentary Elections saw Friends of BJP strike a chord with professionals and urban youth. It is proposed to continue and build the movement in a much more structured manner with clear long-term goals.  India is changing fast with an ever increasing urban population, which is educated and exposed to constant media intervention. What this growing Indian middle class currently lacks is a political platform where it can engage and contribute to the political process of this country. There is a need to modernise the political set up of the country and the FBJP movement can precisely do that for the right wing movement. FBJP should become an alternate platform for rallying people and ideas, an input for the political process. The efforts of the Friends of BJP over the next five years can fulfill this need giving BJP the opportunity to reinforce its credentials as a party of the thinking middle class, ensuring that enlightened debate on national issues continues, and giving the BJP supporters (at least those in urban India) a possible rallying point.

To do this will need a series of bold steps combined with a long-term vision that creates in India a nationally oriented group who think “India First”. The politics of India needs to change since its voters have changed. The mantle of cultural nationalism with “India First” thinking needs to be championed vigorously in the coming years. Youth and Professionals need to be energised with big ideas and vision for a prosperous and vibrant India. To lead the way, we envision a set of three themes for action: Ideas, Communications, Engagement (ICE).

Tomorrow: Ideas

I have collected together four articles from a series I wrote in 2004. These are writings from Atanu Dey on what Development really means.  Here is an excerpt from the first in the series:

For India to develop, there is no way other than moving away from agriculture. By that I don’t mean that we give up agriculture or reduce our production. I only mean that instead of 66 percent of our labor force being in agriculture, we have to steadily reduce that to something like 10 or 20 percent at most in the medium term and to single digit percentages in the long term. When labor does make that transition, then the released labor has to be absorbed in manufacturing and services sectors. This is a natural progression, come to think of it.

Natural because first we need food. Then we need non-food stuff such as clothes and shelter and vehicles and roads and books and computers and shoes and ships and sealing wax etc. All that stuff has to be manufactured. Once we have food and manufactured stuff, we need services such as education and dentistry and dancing and musicals and movies and psychiatry and what nots. This entire edifice is built upon the agricultural sector because without it producing food, no manufacturing nor services would occur. Of course, if we got super good in manufacturing, we could export that and buy food. Or if we got super good in services (BPO or what have you), we could export that and buy food and manufactures. The trouble is that India has a very huge population. And therefore if we ever specialize (that is do only one thing), then we would be forced to produce in such great quantities to export the stuff that the world price of that (food, manufactures, services) will crash and we will not be able to survive.

The bottom line is this: A large economy has to be largely self-sufficient. It has to produce food, manufactures, and services domestically and it has to consume most of what it produces domestically as well. Only small economies can afford to specialize and survive through trade.

This week has been a bit rushed, since I am going to Tokyo next week Mon-Thu (Jan 25-28). If you follow this blog, are in Tokyo, and would be keen to meet up, do let me know. Email me at rajeshjain@netcore.co.in.

This week’s links:

• India’s Annual State of Education Report: by Pratham (via Srikant).
• America’s K-12 Education Strategy: by Sramana Mitra (Forbes).
• 10 Management Lessons from Tesco’s CEO
• India: A Case of Bad Governance: by Atanu Dey (commenting on a Pranab Bardhan article)
• Lessons for Organising Events: by David Beisel

My cousin in the US wrote an iPhone app on a weekend. He put it out there. It now makes him $1,500 a month. Those are the kinds of stories that will drive creation at a large scale in India. That is what this idea of leveraging the mobile cash balance for third-party payments can do.

The story for Indian digital entrepreneurs has been one of disappointment. Poor data infrastructure (both wireline and wireless) coupled with a low user base has limited opportunities and investment in this market.

What is needed is a government intervention to change the game for India’s entrepreneurs. Nothing that I have described here increases any kind of risk in the system. Value creation will be additive. If we can even imagine India’s top 20% (10 crore) mobile users spending Rs 50 a month on new services, it creates a new annual market of Rs 6,000 crore ($1.3+ billion).

More importantly, it will create interest in computers, software and the Internet amongst the youth, and out of that we could see the emergence of India’s Tencents and Googles.  A decade ago, many in India were fired up with the potential of the Internet only to be disappointed by the market. This time around, the potential of the market can delight many in India.