Author: Rajesh Jain

Continuing with the 11 points:

8. DVDs: For me, the delight was in finding DVDs in roadside shops. Bali seems to have legalized piracy. The last time I bought $1 DVDs was in Beijing – surreptitiously on a side street. Here, the shops are there everywhere. 10,000 Rupiah per DVD, with bulk discounts. Almost every new movie is available.

9. Queen’s of India restaurant: The majority of our dinners were at this restaurant on the Kartika plaza road. We spoke to the chef on the first day, and he made excellent Jain food for us. That is something we have discovered as the trick to ensuring Jain food anywhere on the planet – find an Indian restaurant, speak to the chef and promise repeat business!

10. The Traffic: If there is one issue in Bali, it is the increasing traffic jams. Nusa Dua is far from everywhere, so any ride is about 30 minutes. With traffic, it can increase by 20 minutes. The past few years have seen a dramatic increase in traffic. Most of the arterial roads are 2-lanes each direction, and can get quickly congested.

11. The Currency: I have never made millions of any currency so often! One US dollar equals 8,500 Indonesian Rupiah, so you can imagine. I finally figured an easy way to do the conversion to Indian rupees – chop off the last 4 digits, and multiply by 50.

Continuing with the 11 points:

4. Sightseeing: Bali has got it all down perfectly when it comes to sightseeing. Barong traditional dance, Monkey forest, Arts and crafts market of Ubud, Hindu temple, Volcano-crater-lake – it is all there. Of all the sights we saw, seeing the Batur volcano from the facing hill was perhaps the best. It was cloudy that day, so the volcano top was covered with white creating a surreal experience.

5. Hindu Culture: Bali’s Hindu culture was clear in the first few minutes after we landed and as we drove to the hotel. The driver pointed out the big sculpture of Ghatotkacha en route, and mentioned that Ramayana and Mahabharata are highly regarded in Bali, along with the trinity of Gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Bali is about 80% Hindu, and religion plays a big part in life here. One thought that I was struck with: India gave many elements of religion to the South-East Asian region, and we have for the large part forgotten it in our own country.

6. Geneva Handicraft Centre: There are many places to shop around in Bali for handicrafts. The one we liked best (and which I had discovered again via the Internet) was Geneva in Kerbokan. With three floors of stuff reasonably priced, it is a collector’s delight. As Bhavana looked around, Abhishek and I walked the streets outside to find a few interesting toy shops where Abhishek bought a few Angry Birds soft toys.

7. More Shopping: Among other places to shop are the Seminyak road, Carrefour building and Kartika Discovery Mall area. We are not much the experimenting kind, so we tend to stick to a few places we find and like. Other than that, of course, on can walk around various streets. Bhavana bought some glass stuff, purses, and other general stuff which we will probably add to the house and not look at much!

Our Bali trip could be summarized as a collection of 11 points. Here goes:

1. The Hotel: Conrad is a great place to stay. The hotel, like many others in Nusa Dua, is right on the beach. A few minutes walk from the room and one is right there. The service is excellent, as probably is the case in most such hotels. We had a ground floor room, with a little patio. Sitting outside, listening to the sound of a waterfall, seeing the greenery and the little water body around – it all is so relaxing.

2. The Beach: My concept of a beach so far in life has been largely limited to Chowpatty. Which of course, is no comparison. We haven’t been to Goa and other beach destinations in India. What has changed in the past couple years is that Bhavana and Abhishek have both learnt swimming so water is much more inviting than it used to be. Walking around, sitting in the sun, hunting for sea shells, playing around in the water (I skipped this part) – that is what beaches are for.

3. Swimming: For me, I will remember this vacation because I went into a swimming pool after 15 years! I know swimming but somehow never did it all these years. Out here, prodded on by Abhishek, I went right in. And it was so good to be in the water. I splash a lot of water, so the fact that there weren’t too many others at the time I went in helped.

Bali was our first beach resort vacation. It was different. Most of the previous vacations have been very busy – shopping, going place to place, always thinking of stuff to do. This time around, we had no such urgencies. We stayed at the Conrad in Nusa Dua – I picked it from the reviews on TripAdvisor and also because it had some rooms with a kitchenette, which given our Jain food restrictions, come in very handy.

We spent a fair amount of our time in the hotel – most mornings consisted of a walk on the beach, watching TV, sitting in the patio outside, and generally doing nothing. Which as it turns out is actually quite difficult and takes some getting used to. I used the time to sit and do some thinking on what I want to do in the next couple years. I was reading Kasparov’s book and the chapter “Endgame” struck a deep chord.

Afternoons, we would go out shopping and generally seeing places. There isn’t that much to check out in  Bali – much of it can be completed in a couple days. On one of the days, we took the standard full-day tour that took us to Ubud and the various places around. Dinner was usually at an Indian restaurant so we would get our one full meal for the day.

From a post a year ago (after a trip to China):

Seeing Shenzhen and Shanghai, all I can say is that anyone who thinks that Mumbai can become a Shanghai or India can do a China has not visited China. Sitting here in Mumbai, we can imagine and dream. But going to the places, one is struck by the scale of what has been created in so short a time.

Two developments said it all in India while I was away. A Bandh was organised across India bringing the nation to a halt. The additional sea links that should have been built a generation ago in Mumbai were further delayed.

A friend I was talking to put it so well: “We build for yesterday, China builds for tomorrow.” In India, there is little semblance of any planning; we are always playing catch up. Three decades ago, India and China were equally behind in the development race. Today, one country has gone so far ahead, and the other still trundles along – a little faster than before, but not in the race.

This week’s links:

• Evolution of MVAS in India: A presentation by Analysis Mason.
• Africa’s mobile economic revolution: from The Guardian. “The power of telephony is forging a new enterprise culture, from banking to agriculture to healthcare.”
• India’s half-finished revolution: from The Economist. “India’s liberalisation began with a bang in 1991, but two decades on the unreformed parts of the economy are becoming a drag on growth. Time for another bang.”
• India learns to innovate: by Rajeev Mantri. “India has always failed to achieve its potential when it comes to commercializing technology, but with the return of talent from abroad and the emergence of a large domestic market, it now has momentum.”
• News Redux: by Andy Rutledge. “Almost all news organizations have abandoned reporting in favor of editorial; have cultivated reader opinion in place of responsibility; and have traded ethical standards for misdirection and whatever consensus defines as forgivable.”

I still remember reading James Gleick’s Chaos a long, long time ago. It was beautifully written and simplified a complex subject. Now, Gleick takes what is a seemingly simple topic – information – and weaves a wide array of stories around it. We are all flooded with information, and have a hard time keeping up and sometimes, making sense of it all. The book is about the people from the past who made our information world the way it is.

From Publisher’s Weekly: “In 1948, Bell Laboratories announced the invention of the electronic semiconductor and its revolutionary ability to do anything a vacuum tube could do but more efficiently. While the revolution in communications was taking these steps, Bell Labs scientist Claude Shannon helped to write a monograph for them, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, in which he coined the word bit to name a fundamental unit of computer information. As bestselling author Gleick (Chaos) astutely argues, Shannon’s neologism profoundly changed our view of the world; his brilliant work introduced us to the notion that a tiny piece of hardware could transmit messages that contained meaning and that a physical unit, a bit, could measure a quality as elusive as information. Shannon’s story is only one of many in this sprawling history of information. With his brilliant ability to synthesize mounds of details and to tell rich stories, Gleick leads us on a journey from one form of communicating information to another, beginning with African tribes’ use of drums and including along the way scientists like Samuel B. Morse, who invented the telegraph; Norbert Wiener, who developed cybernetics; and Ada Byron, the great Romantic poet’s daughter, who collaborated with Charles Babbage in developing the first mechanical computer. Gleick’s exceptional history of culture concludes that information is indeed the blood, the fuel, and the vital principle on which our world runs.”

I was drawn to this book by a chapter entitled “The Voter.” I had heard and read bits about how the US political parties would do microtargeting. The science of analysing and targeting voters came alive in this 30-page chapter, and that then encouraged me to sample other chapters in the book. As we are awash in data, analytics is going to play a key role in many industries. This book is a good starting point for starting to think about how to manage and make sense of data.

From Booklist: “Every click we make, every cell phone call, every credit-card purchase enlarges our “digital dossiers,” business journalist Baker explains in this bracing behind-the-screen investigation into the booming world of data mining and analysis. Our digital echoes collect in a vast ocean of data that marketers and government agencies alike are eager to trawl, if only it were charted. Enter the top-notch mathematicians Baker dubs the Numerati. Baker gamely visits eerily high-tech companies and speaks with algorithm wizards intent on quantifying everything we do in all arenas of life in order to mathematically model humanity and manipulate our behavior. Baker’s report on microtargeted marketing, the use of workplace data to “optimize” employees, the scrutiny of online social networks, and the robotic reading of millions of blogs supports his warning that we’re “in danger of becoming data serfs—slaves to the information we produce.” This is a fascinating outing of the hidden yet exploding world of digital surveillance and stealthy intrusions into our decision-making processes as we buy food, make a date, or vote for president.”

Two books that I have found particularly useful are:

• Rethinking State Politics in India by Ashutosh Kumar. This looks at India as a collection of regions. From the book: “This volume adopts a sub-national comparative method for carrying out an in-depth analysis of the politics of identity as well as development in the large, multi-level polity of India by focusing on micro narratives that may otherwise be passed over while viewing the larger picture. The articles focus on regions within states and not the state per se, as the unit of analysis. Interestingly, they employ both intra-state and inter-state regional perspectives in a comparative mode to highlight the nuanced nature of the movements for autonomy.”
• Electoral Politics in Indian States by Shastri, Suri and Yadav. This fills in the gap between the elections and provides richer data.  From the book: “Using detailed electoral data from the 2004 elections from across the country, the volume covers various states, including Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Kerala from the south; Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, and Rajasthan from the west; Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh in the north; and Jharkhand, West Bengal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Manipur in the east. It examines the phenomenon of the ‘third electoral front’, which came into being with the 1989 elections and continues till date. From its origins in a time of political and economic instability and social upheaval, the front has, by this time, given way to a more stable order, even though the era of single party ruled governments has given way to coalition politics. The book highlights the role of state and regional politics at the center, and how the clout of regional parties has increased over the last ten years.

Admittedly, these are heavy reading. But for those like me who came in late to understanding India’s politics, they are a good start and reference.

I have been going through some books on India’s political landscape, and especially some of the recent elections.

Sage has books on some of the recent elections edited by Paul Wallace and Ramashray Roy.  Since these books are published a year or two after the elections, there is time for some in-depth research and analysis. The 2009 elections book has come out recently. While one may not necessary agree with everything that is said, there are enough good insights to make this a useful addition for those seeking an understanding of India’s electoral politics.

From the book introduction: “According to the contributors, the public outcome of the 2009 elections indicated a demand for integrity, continuity, and competence — values that were considered almost obsolete in today’s political scenario. At the same time, the contributors admit to problems in structure, providing for minority cultures, stability, and contentious public policy issues.”