Emergic: Rajesh Jain’s Blog

During the visit, I decided to also explore the culture of Manga comics. I found a few in English and started reading them. The stories were amazingly engrossing. Thedrawings are black and white line art, and some of the comic books are also quite edgy.

Seeing the craze for Manga made me think about Comics in India. I, like many others, grew up on a regular dose of comics. It started with Amar Chitra Katha - buying their new comic every two weeks as soon as it was published. Then, when I was old enough to make my own buying decisions, I ‘graduated’ to Phantom, Dennis, Mandrake, Bahadur (remember Indrajal Comics?), and the like. I also remember reading a lot of the Commando comics (stories from the World Wars). Most of these comics were rented from a nearby library. I later explored Tintin and Asterix, but never quite got into them.

Somewhere, through the years, the craze for comics in India has reduced. I hope that changes. Perhaps, if we can simplify the drawing to a variation of the Manga style (eliminating the need for colouring), we can open up new markets within India.

As it so often happens, once you go down a certain path, circumstances help you. Meetings got set up rapidly, and I had very little time to do anything else.

The only free time I got was on one evening when I met with another friend who happened to be visiting from Hong Kong. We had last met more than five years ago, so there was a lot to talk about as we walked around Ginza and parked ourselves in one of Japan’s traditional coffee shops.

As we walked around Ginza, I went into a toy shop and did a little shopping for Abhishek. Given that his current love is fast trains (trains that travel “billions of kilometers in zero seconds”), I got him a few Shinkansen models. I also bought the board game, Go. I am looking forward to learning it and also teaching it to Abhishek so we have yet another board game option to play.

An enduring memory of the trip will be seeing Mount Fuji from the hotel on one of the mornings as I was having breakfast. It was a clear morning (quite a rarity in Tokyo, from what I was told) and Mount Fuji was visible clearly in the distance.

An idea from a year ago:

One of the ideas I have been thinking over the past few days is what I call “Conversations and Networks.” It stems from the fact that we need to get over our apathy and have a deeper discussion about what’s happening in India. That is the Conversation part. And what if we had, simultaneously, an opportunity to expand our Network - meeting more and new people. How can we do this at a mass scale involving millions in India? This can create the foundation of an emergent democracy.

This week’s links:

• How America Can Rise Again: by James Fallows, in The Atlantic. “In most significant ways, the U.S. remains the envy of the world. But here’s the alarming problem: our governing system is old and broken and dysfunctional. Fixing it—without resorting to a constitutional convention or a coup—is the key to securing the nation’s future.”
• How the Next Decade can be India’s: by William Avery (via Atanu). “For the world to accept India as a major power, it has to start acting like one, not just talking like one.”
• The New Golden Age: by Mark Stahlman, from strategy+business. “The history of investment and technology suggests that economic recovery is closer than you think, with a new silicon-based global elite at the helm.”
• Mobile 2010 Predictions: by Robert Cringely. “So-called “feature phones” are going away, to be replaced within two product cycles (three years, tops) entirely by smart phones driven by mobile app stores and the need for carriers to generate additional revenue.”
• Subscriptions are the New Black: by Dave McClure. “The default startup business model for 2010 & beyond will be subscriptions and transactions (e-commerce, digital goods).”

When travelling, one of my big challenges is always food. Jain food (vegetarian; no onion / garlic) is the norm. Even though I do carry some food with me, there is nothing like a good hot meal! I normally end up doing a heavy breakfast at the hotel, and then hope for one meal at an Indian restaurant. Experimentation on the food front is a strict No-No for me!

I found an Indian restaurant right opposite ANA Intercontinental in Tokyo. With a name like Swagat, I figured I could get them to make me some Jain food! Even during our previous Tokyo visit, Bhavana and I had found a few Indian restaurants and gotten them to make Jain dishes.

Swagat turned to be a revelation.  I ended up having one meal there for all the days that I was in Tokyo. The food was just like home-cooked food, and very filling. I also struck up a good conversation with the manager (Mr. Shetty, who has been in Tokyo for 17 years) through the days.

So, the food problem resolved itself - as it always does!

Given that Abhishek’s school life has begun, it was only me going to Tokyo. While I had a few meetings set up through contacts, it seemed like I would have plenty of free time to roam around, see and think.

I took the ANA direct flight to Tokyo. It completely changed my view of what an international flight was supposed to be! ANA’s 737-700 BusinessJet had only business class - and only 36 (or 40, I am not sure) seats. There were just about a dozen of us on the flight. Boarding was complete in five minutes!

ANA operates a daily service between Mumbai and Tokyo. The return leg is much longer, with a refueling half to Fukuoka in Japan, which extends the journey to about 13 hours (as compared to the 8 hours it takes to get to Tokyo).

The return flight was on a similar aircraft, but this time around it had a mixed Economy-Business configuration. Occupancy was under 50%.

The Mumbai-Tokyo flight is through the night (dep 9:05 pm, arr 8:45 am) , while the return is through the day (dep 10:10 am, arr 7:45 pm).

The hotel I stayed at in Tokyo (the same one where my friend was also staying) was ANA Intercontinental, also in Akasaka. It is very conveniently located - and most of meetings were short cab rides away.

Every once in a while, I like to take a trip to a different place - to see things, put myself in a new context, meet people I have never met before, and experience situations that are not the ordinary. I used to do this a lot earlier, but this has reduced a lot over the past few years. In large part, it is because I don’t want to be away from Abhishek for too long. And perhaps, I am simply less adventuresome that I used to be a decade ago!

When a friend from the US mentioned to me that he will be in Tokyo and could help with some introductions with different people to explore business opportunities in Japan, it didn’t take me much to say Yes. That old spirit of adventure was rekindled.

I had been to Tokyo with Bhavana in early 2004 (pre-Abhishek days) en route to the US. That was a three-day sightseeing trip since I didn’t have any business contacts to meet. We had stayed at The Capitol in Akasaka. Getting to Tokyo was quite exhausting - there were no direct flights from Mumbai, and so we had gone via Bangkok.

This time around, everything was different!

One idea I have been thinking about recently has been that of Neighbourhood Action Committees (NACs).

These will be apolitical and based on volunteering. They will focus on making the neighbourhood better across the country, especially in urban India. This means ensuring delivery of local services, working to solve local problems, creating citizen activism.This idea came up because the weakest link in the governance chain in India is the delivery of local services. The neighbourhood is where we all live and where we also have the greatest angst and frustrations.

What we need to create a society which starts to think and solve its own problems at the local level. Governance is weak in India, and to strengthen it needs work at the lowest level. We need to show people how to self-organise, how to create proposals, conduct meetings, debate issues and arrive at decisions, and finally get action done.

People should be able to help out in the NACs with as little as an hour or two a week. They can use the Web and mobile to help inform, educate and organise.

Here are my answers to the three questions I had asked last Friday.

1. What are the 2-3 big issues that will present the most challenges and opportunities for India?

• Quality Education
• Jobs Creation
• Urbanisation (moving India’s rural people to livable new cities)
• Corruption

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?

• Building a Better India - with pride in our culture and power in our actions
• Getting youth to be participative in local governance issues

3. Which matters should we focus on in the next 10 years? These should be achievable and must be important for India’s development.

• Education
• Urban and Rural Infrastructure
• Creating Opportunities for people
• Eliminating Corruption from the highest levels of India’s government
• Creating an open, transparent real-time government

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.