Startups that shut down in 2016

While 2015 saw launch of three to four startups a day, the second quarter of 2016 witnessed a lot of layoffs and shutdowns. Lack of funds, plummeting sales and rising competition were the major seasons for the shutdowns. Here are the startups that shut their shops in 2016.

TinyOwl – Food-ordering firm TinyOwl shut down its operations in May in all cities where it was operational except Mumbai. The move was, however, said to be temporary as the company wanted to re-brand itself and return with a better product.

Dazo – an app based service that curated and delivered meals, has suddenly shut down its operations in October this year. Several food delivery startups have taken a hit in 2016 primarily because they were struggling to raise fresh funds of funding and do not have money to sustain operations beyond a few months. 

PepperTap – On demand grocery delivery startup PepperTap rolled back its consumer centric app in April 2016. The move to shut down its operations came due to pressure from rivals including Grofers and BigBasket, which raised substantial funding. It had also acquired another budding hyperlocal grocery marketplace, Jiffstore, but all were in vain.

Fashionara – Bangalore based company closed its business in May 2016. It scaled business in apparel, accessories and footwear segment. Unsuccessful attempts to raise money or find buyers were forcing some of the fashion portals which had resorted to deep discounting to lure customers but were confronted with a cash crunch to close or scale back their operations.

Purple Squirrel – An EdTech financial startup, backed by Matrix, closed down business in 2016. The Mumbai based startup was launched to connect students with industry leaders and big companies for industrial exposure and training. However, it was forced to shut down due to continuously dipping sales and increasing cash burn.

AskMe – The consumer internet search platform shut down in August. The shutdown left about 4000 of its employees jobless. A variety of reasons, from weak technology to aggressive acquisitions, are said to be responsible for the online retailer’s failure.

Zupermeal – This startup allowed users to pre-order food from nearby restaurants. It closed its operations in May after just eight months of raising seed funds from the celebrity chief Sanjeev Kapoor. It had raised an undisclosed amount from overseas investors in October 2015.

AUTOnCAB – Gurgaon based autorickshaw booking app AUTOnCAB has shut down its operations owing to stiff competition from its heavily funded rivals. The company reportedly was in talks to raise fresh funding for a long time but failed to seal a deal.

GrocShop - The Mumbai based startup offered grocery shopping from the comfort of homes or offices at competitive costs. It reportedly failed to find a profitable growth model in a segment which was otherwise attracting investors in droves.

FranklyMe – It was a micro-blogging website launched in 2014, with the premise of letting people expresses themselves through videos. It has raised $600k seed funding from Matrix partners. Despite the fact that it has been a well-funded company, it failed to capture the market attention and closed down all operations in February 2016.

Disadvantages of Cashless Payments

In continuation of last article, here are the disadvantages of Cashless Payments:-

Higher Risk of Identity Theft – Since we are culturally not attuned to digital transactions, even well educated people run the risk of falling into phishing traps. With the rising incidence of online fraud, the risk of hacking will only grow as more people hop on to the digital platform. Besides, the latest move by the government to remove the two-factor authentication process for online transactions up to 2,000 will not help.

Losing Phone – Since one will be dependent on phone for all transactions on the move, losing it can prove to be a double whammy. It can not only make susceptible to identify theft, but one could also be rendered helpless in the absence of physical cash or any other payment option. This can be especially problematic if you are travelling abroad or in smaller towns or villages with lack of banking infrastructure or other payment options.

Another drawback is that you need to keep your phone constantly charged. If the phone dies on you, you will be stranded, particularly if you are in the middle of an important purchase or dealing with an emergency.

Difficult for Tech Unsavvy – India has a low Internet penetration of 34.8%, and only 26.3% of all mobile phone users have a smartphone. The digital medium may prove a challenge for the tech unfriendly people, who will need more time to adapt or the availability of other options to conduct transactions.

Overspending – While there is no denying the convenience of card or mobile wallet transactions, it could open a spending trap for an unsuspecting population. Using cash instead of cards or mobile wallets acts as a natural bulwark for people who find it difficult to control their spending.

Besides, a high penetration of the digital payment system is contingent on the fact that the same amount of cash does not come back into circulation. If it does, people are more likely to switch back to the former ease of using cash as it is a habit that they may find difficult to break.

Advantages of Cashless Payments

As the country moves towards a cashless environment after demonetization, the initial awe and confusion have given way to a flurry of concerns. To incentivize the move towards a cashless economy, the government has come up with a rash of discounts and freebies on digital transactions. There are certain advantages of Cashless Payments.

Convenience – The ease of conducting financial transactions is probably the biggest motivator to go digital. You will no longer need to carry wads of cash, plastic cards, or even queue up to ATM withdrawals. It’s also a safer and easier spending option when you are travelling. It will be especially useful in case of emergencies. One have the freedom of transact whenever and wherever one want.

Discounts – The recent waiver of service tax on card transactions up to Rs 2,000 is one of the incentives provided by the government to promote digital transactions. This has been followed by a series of cuts and freebies. It’s a good time to increase your savings if you take advantage of these. For instance, 0.75% discount on digital purchase of fuel means that the petrol price in Delhi at Rs 63.47/l can be brought down to Rs 62.99/l with digital payment.

Similarly, saving on rail tickets, highway toll or purchase of insurance can help cut your costs. Add to these the cashback offers and discounts offered by mobile wallets like Paytm, as well as the Reward points and loyalty benefits on existing credit and store cards, and it could help improve your cash flow marginally.

Tracking Spends – If all transactions are on record, it will be very easy for people to keep track of their spending. It will also help while filing income tax returns and in case of a scrutiny, people will find it easy to explain their spends. Besides the tax, it will have a good impact on budgeting.

Budget Discipline – Various apps and tools will help people analyze their spending patterns and throw up good insights over a couple of years. Controlled spending could also result in higher investing. If the same amount of cash does not flow back into circulation and people continue to use mobile wallets and cards, it is likely to bring down the latte factor. There is a lesser chance of budgetary leaks and unaccounted for spends sneaking into your budget at the end of the month.

Lower Risk – If stolen, it is easy to block a credit card or mobile wallet remotely, but it is impossible to get your cash back. This is especially true while travelling, especially abroad, where loss of cash can cause great inconvenience. Besides, the futuristic cards evolve to use Biometric ID, it can be extremely difficult to copy, making it a very safe option.

Small Gains – It may not seem like much of an advantage, but being cashless makes it easy to ward off borrowers. Another plus is that you can pay the exact amount without worrying about not having change or getting it back from shopkeepers.

Sectors badly hit due to Demonetization

In a bid to promote cashless and digital economy, PM Narendra Modi announced demonetization on November 08. Modi scrapped old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, saying this will crack a whip on black money hoarders and encourage more and more Indians to open bank accounts. Since Demonetization, banks have received at least Rs 6 Trillion and this figure is likely to go up. Many sectors were hit as people faced cash crunch and did not have new notes to spend. Sales of daily and luxury items were also hit due to Demonetization. Here are few sectors that have been impacted due to note ban.

E-commerce – The sales of e-commerce companies came down to 60-70% and there was a significant drop in orders, especially the cash-on-delivery ones. Despite rolling out multiple offers, the online marketplaces have seen a drop of sales costing as much as Rs 10 Lakh too.

Smartphone Makers – Mobile phone makers and sellers are facing a tough time as people have no cash to buy phones. Many have delayed their phone launches due to demonetization.

Automobiles – In November, utility vehicles sales are likely to go down 40-50%. Sales of two wheelers and luxury cars are the worst hit.

Travel and eating out – Travel sector has been hit as foreign travellers coming in are in a fix over note ban. Even Indians are not opting to travel overseas, due to demonetization. Restaurant reservations in Delhi – NCR have gone down by 28%.

Movie Theatres – Although people have started booking tickets online, even the entertainment faced the brunt of demonetization. Many of the movie halls saw a drop in viewership when demonetization was announced.

Failed Google Products

In the tech world, failure is as much a feature of innovation as success. Google is known for its collection of wildly popular products, from Search to Maps to Android. But not everything the company touches turns to gold. Google Glass was supposed to change the world, but quickly became a punch line. The best innovations are the ones that everybody thinks are doomed to fail.

Orkut – It was a popular social networking service that grew out of a Googler's "20 per cent time" project. The site was more popular abroad than it was in the US. Google decided to kill it in September 2014. Google's Nexus Q, a streaming media player that was designed to connect all home devices, was unveiled with great fanfare at the company's 2012 developer conference. Google's virtual worlds only lasted a little over a year. Google said it created Lively because it wanted users to be able to interact with their friends and express themselves online in new ways," but it just didn't catch on. Lively was shut down in 2008.

iGoogle, a personalized homepage, was shut down in 2013. It allowed users to customize their homepage with widgets. Google said iGoogle wasn't needed as much anymore since apps could run on Chrome and Android. Originally intended to give people access to health and wellness information, Google Health was closed for good in January 2012 after Google observed the service was "not having the broad impact that we hoped it would".

The Google Play edition Android phone was introduced in the spring of 2014. But by January 2015, they were listed as "no longer available for sale" and a Galaxy S5 edition of the phone never materialized. Google first unveiled Glass in dramatic fashion in 2012, but the device never reached the masses. Glass came with a high price tag, software issues, and potential privacy problems and generally looked too nerdy. Google ended consumer sales of Glass in January 2015, but it is working on a new version now.

Google Buzz was a social networking service that was integrated into Gmail, but it was plagued with problematic privacy issues and never caught on. The company announced in October 2011 it would shut down the service to focus on Google+ instead. Google Answers was the first project Google worked on and started as an idea from Larry Page. Answers lasted for more than four years but stopped accepting questions in 2006.

Lessons Start-ups can learn from Corporate World

Many books and articles have been written on what corporates can learn from start-ups, how to build an agile culture, foster creativity in the team, and ship products quickly. However, the opposite is also true in many cases. There are areas that a start-up can learn from a well-run corporate. Implementing these lessons early on will help a start-up immensely along its journey to be a large well-managed company.

Team Management- The challenges of managing a team between a corporate and a start-up are not materially different. 

Performance Discipline- Performance spins the wheel whether in a billion dollar organization or a company with a few thousand dollars in revenue. Closing sales, managing leads, meeting customer demands, delivering a better experience — these are all part of an organization’s efforts to keep the lights on. 

Financial Discipline- Many start-up founders do not take the time to establish financial discipline and end up paying a high cost for this mistake. 

Board Governance- As start-ups continue to raise funds and have external investors, it needs to establish a proper governing board. A good board can be a powerful ally to the founder — board members can guide founders through difficult situations, make important introductions, and help raise next level of funds.

People Discipline- A founder spends a good portion of her time in recruiting and managing the people in her company. As the startup continues to accelerate, human resources become an important function for the success of the company.

Operations- Things change very quickly and the old way of managing operations do not work anymore. Founders of start-ups can borrow the processes and operational learning’s of the corporate world as they embark to scale.

Google Projects that could change the World

Google parent company Alphabet has so many projects cooking it can be difficult to keep track. But there are some that could truly change the world. Here are the mind-blowing projects.

The smart contact lenses project is run by Alphabet's Verily Company, which was originally named Google Life Sciences. The lenses could be solar-powered and collect biological data about the wearer. Sensors embedded in the contacts could collect information like body temperature and blood-alcohol content. The lenses could also have glucose sensors to measure sugar levels in your tears. 

Project Loon aims to provide internet access to rural areas and parts of the world where it's difficult to access the web. The balloons will fly 60,000 to 90,000 feet in the air, or two to three times higher than airplanes fly. They'll be powered by solar, allowing them to stay airborne for 100 days at a time. The balloons will beam LTE signals to the ground. 

Now run under Alphabet's Google X division, Makani Power makes an airborne device called an 'energy kite' to create renewable energy. An energy kite is equipped with rotors that help it lift off the ground. Once it's in flight, the wind forces the rotors to act like individual turbines. The system reportedly generates 50 per cent more energy than traditional turbines and uses 90 per cent less materials. 

The tech giant plans to beam the internet around the world using drones as part of its Project Titan. Dubbed the Titan Aerospace Solara 50, the drone can stay airborne for five years straight, thanks to the 3,000 solar cells on its wingspan.

About 1.24 million people worldwide die each year in collisions, with that number expected to rise to 2.2 million by 2030, according to the World Health Organization. But having driverless cars on the road can greatly reduce the number of accidents. Google's driverless cars are leading the industry, having driven over 1.7 million miles in autonomous mode since 2009. 

Google X The research team is developing tiny magnetic particles called nanoparticles that can attach to cells, proteins, or other molecules. Google X is also developing a wearable that would use a magnet to count the particles consistently. The system could provide an early warning system for cancer. 

Google's artificial intelligence could truly change the world as we know it. When Google's AI system AlphaGo beat a world champion at the complex game of Go, it garnered a lot of praise. If Google's AI continues to advance on the track it's on today, it could open a world of possibilities, like building conscious machines. 

Run by Calico, a company under Alphabet that stands for California Life Company, the project's researchers are looking at things like genes that correlate to longer lifespans in certain people. There's still very little information out there about what Calico is working on. 

Costs of Air Pollution

Air Pollution takes years off people’s lives. It causes substantial pain and suffering, among adults and children alike. And it damages food production, at a time when we need to feed more people than ever. This is not just an economic issue, it is a moral one.

Air Pollution can be produced both outdoors and indoors. For the poorest families, indoor smog from coal or dung fired cooking stoves is typically the more serious problem. As economies develop and start to electrify, motorize and urbanize, outdoor air pollution becomes the bigger issue. Cleaner technologies are available, with the potential to improve air quality considerably. But policymakers tend to focus myopically on the costs of action, rather than the costs of inaction.

The Economic Consequences of Outdoor Air Pollution estimates that outdoor Air Pollution will cause 6-9 Million premature deaths annually by 2060, compared to 3 Million in 2010. That is equivalent to a person dying every 4-5 seconds. Cumulatively, more than 200 Million people will die prematurely in the next 45 years as a result of air pollution. There will also be more pollution-related illness. New cases of bronchitis in children aged 6-12 are forecast to soar to 36 Million per year by 2060, from 12 Million today. For adults, they predict 10 Million new cases per year by 2060, up from 3.5 Million today. Children are also being increasingly affected by asthma.

These health problems will be concentrated in densely populated areas with high particulate matter (PM) concentrations, especially cities in China and India. In per capita terms, mortality is also set to reach high levels in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus region and other parts of Asia, such as South Korea, where ageing populations are highly vulnerable to air pollution.

The impact of air pollution is often discussed in dollar terms. By 2060, 3.75 billion working days per year could be lost due to the adverse health effects of dirty air. The direct market impact of this pollution in terms of lower worker productivity, higher health spending and lower crop yields could exceed 1% of gross domestic product, or $2.6 trillion, annually by 2060. On average, individuals would be prepared to pay around $30 to reduce their annual risk of dying prematurely by one in 100,000.

By that measure, the global cost of premature deaths caused by outdoor air pollution would reach a staggering $18-25 trillion a year by 2060. Arguably, this is not “real” money, as the costs are not related to any market transactions. But it does reflect the value people put on their very real lives. It is time for governments to stop fussing about the costs of efforts to limit air pollution and start worrying about the much larger costs of allowing it to continue unchecked. Their citizens’ lives are in their hands.

Know about Chatbots

Messaging platforms are coming of age, and chatbots are all the rage now, they are touted as the next app like wave in communication industry. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are advancing by the day, there is a layer of it being added to everything we know, smart cars, smart homes, smart shoes and of course messengers have become platforms on which commerce and brand communications are being built now.

There are three key drivers shaping the market for chatbots. Firstly, large communication technology companies from the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Google are making it conducive for building chat based products, they have opened up their respective messaging platforms for developers to build and innovate on top of it. Even Apple has announced APIs for Siri, a move to allow developers into what has been a walled garden so far. So to say, chatbots are no longer standalone products but part of an ecosystem just like how apps are built and distributed on app stores.

Secondly, there's a rising usage of Messengers over traditional SMSes; recently, Zuckerberg announced that 60 billion messages are sent over Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp every day, together they are thrice bigger than the 20 billion SMS sent. WeChat in China has set an impeccable precedence to show the world how a thriving metamarket can be built within a chat app. WeChat is more like a virtual hypermarket on top of which others businesses have built stores through chat apps.  

Third macro factor driving the rise of chatbots is the Gen next's growing preference to chat based interfaces. Messaging has surpassed social media to become the preferred method of communication for millennial. Mary Meeker's research shows that 69 percent of millennial prefer web/internet chat, social media, and messaging to other channels such as talking on phone or IVRS. In past decade we saw brands enabling customers to do everything online, from ordering pizzas with emojis to banking with hash tags, we have seen it all. Chatbots is the emerging new world order.

All of this gives genuine reasons for marketers to consider investing their time and efforts to build chatbots and make it an effective means to allure new wave of customers their way. Chat apps/ bots is not a magic wand one can wave to make a product or service awesome. In foreseeable future, chatbots are only likely to be another customer touch point or an interface to existing business, it can perhaps slowly replace the load on IVRS and Email based customer support.

Chatbots are slowly evolving into an enabler, a digital concierge. But that evolution comes with a subset of challenges, one of them is the multi-agent problem. Consider this, Google's upcoming messenger Allo allows user to add @Google in a group chat and invoke it for getting answers or to get things done. Besides the multi-agent problem, there's another task for marketers to grapple with, to ensure a seamless experience for people using chatbots and smart assistants. 

Communication is a tough business:the way a message is written is not how people preceive it. Just like humans have selective distortion problems, bots have context and natural language processing (NLP) problems. For now, the only jobs chatbots can take away are that of a few helpless souls working at call centres with pseudo American names and a fake accent.

Skills for Success in Digital Marketing

Given the ever increasing growth of spend on Digital Media; there is a constant demand of skilled digital marketing professionals. There are two types of digital marketing skills one should look at: Soft Skills, which are related to aptitude and attitude of a person Technical Skills, which are related to specific aspects of digital marketing.

For anyone who wants to be successful in Digital Marketing, there are no pre-requisites in terms of educational qualification and technology skills. Even if you are not a graduate or have no understanding of technology, you can successfully acquire Digital Marketing skills as long as you are committed and passionate about Digital Media. Given the dynamic nature of Digital Media, one should have the following soft skills to be successful in leveraging digital marketing.

Communication Skills: On Digital Media, an organization communicates with its target audience through text, image or video. The quality of this communication will naturally determine the outcome of any digital marketing campaign.

Creativity: Given the overload of information on Digital Media, marketer’s needs to be creative enough to ensure that their campaigns stand out among competition.

Analytical Skills: One of the key advantages of digital marketing is the amount of real time data available to measure progress of any campaign. If you want to leverage this data to optimize a campaign for success, you should have strong analytical skills to analyze this data and make intelligent decisions to fulfill your campaign's objectives.

Passion: While passion is not a trait specific to career in digital marketing, it is one of the fundamental reasons for one's success in learning and leveraging digital marketing. As shared by various thought leaders, passion determines your success and happiness for anything you do in your life and digital marketing is not an exception.

Quick Learner: Digital Marketing is one of the most dynamic fields. How quickly you can adapt to the changes in the digital medium will determine how well you can conceptualize and execute digital marketing campaigns. 

Multi-tasker: There are multiple views about multitasking. Given the real time nature of digital marketing and that too spread across multiple channels, multitasking is one of the important skills for any digital marketer. 

Thirst for knowledge: Your ability to remain abreast with latest trends across various digital media will play a significant role in your success in leveraging this medium for your personal and organizational growth. 

Social Skills: Digital medium especially Social Media is all about engagement and collaboration. How well you connect with others will determine your ability to satisfy your customer's needs on this medium. Moreover, your social skills will help you learn from others and take their support to improve the success of your digital marketing campaigns. 

Willingness to Experiment: There are no fixed rules about digital medium. Also, there are no boundaries for success on this medium. Your ability to constantly experiment along with your strong analytical skills will play a crucial role in successfully strategizing and executing digital marketing campaigns.

Comfort with Technology: While you do not need to be a programmer or have strong technical skills, technology plays an important role in digital marketing. For example, you can multiply the efficiency of digital marketing campaigns or efficiently measure the performance through technology. Your comfort with technology will determine how well you embrace it and leverage other technical resources, who manage technology for the ultimate success of your digital marketing campaigns. 

Facts about Padma Awards

The government of India had released data regarding all Padma Awards – Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri – given since 1955. As per the data a total of 4,284 Padma Awards have been given between the 1955-2016 period.

Of every five Padma Awards at least one comes from Delhi which accounts for 793 cases (18.6%). Delhi is followed by Maharashtra with 748 awards and Tamil Nadu with 384 awards. In 63 years since 1955, Northern India has got 1558 Padma Awards which is about 36.6% of the total awards. This means one of every three Padma Award comes to Northern India. Southern region got only 898 awards which is about 20.96%. North East region, however, has got only 161 which is about 3.75%.

Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) during 10 years of its tenure (2004-2014) gave about 1,169 Padma Awards. This means at least 27.29% (over 1/4^th) of total Padma Awards given since 1955 were during UPA. Bharatiya Janata Party led National Democratic Alliance government in last two years has given 215 Awards.

About 54% (2,311) of Padma Awards given since 1955 were for Arts, Medicine, Literature and Education. Of the 2,311 awards, art topped the list with 924 awards followed by Literature and Education with 850 Awards and Medicine with 537 Awards. The highest number of Padma awards in one calendar year was given in 1972 when 148 Padma Awards were announced. Interestingly, no awards were given in six years 1978 to 1979 and 1993 to 1996.

Leadership Lessons from Goddess Durga

Navratri is the most exuberant and zesty festival. Goddess Durga is celebrated with an unmatched fervor at this time. She is one of the strongest links that noticeably binds this nation of diverse people. While the Goddess inculcates great devotion in us, she also offers us some very profound life lessons that hold a wealth of meaning even for the management world.

The word Durga, from the root word ‘Durgam’ itself, embodies fearlessness. Remaining true to our convictions in the face of each adversity, however, big or small it may be, gives us an unshakeable inner strength. The stronger we are from inside, the move fearless we are perceived on the outside. These three together go a long way in ensuring success in the long run. Goddess Durga rides a tiger, it’s a metaphor showing – a fearless being can go on to tame problems and situations even as fierce as a tiger and came out as the winner.

Durga Maa with her eight hands epitomizes the word ‘multi-tasking’. Multi-tasking not only saves time, but it also keeps us mentally active and agile. Multi-tasking makes us independent of the vagaries of time and resources. Notice any idol or statue of Goddess Durga – the most prominent feature that arrests our attention is her beautiful, calm and serene visage which sports big yet watchful eyes.

Big eyes are a symbol of having a 360 degree vision so as to know where one needs to reach. But just knowing the destination does not complete the journey. The watchfulness symbolizes a constant eye on your journey to your goal. While watchfulness is desirable, the Goddess serene visage also cautions to bear equanimity within us. A composed leader manger can accomplish much more than an agitated one.

Goddess Durga comes to us in 9 different avatars on the 9 days of Navratri. There is a very simple management lesson hidden here. Leader Managers be ready to don a different hat for different situations. Be yourself but adapt your style, tone, stance, manner and involvement as per the situation on hand. Just how one Goddess Durga binds millions of hearts and together in worship and faith – be the glue, the link that binds people together. Unravelers lose their reason for being very quickly.

Lastly, but most importantly, when all other powerful Gods failed to stop the unstoppable demon Mahishasura, the supreme being too had to take a form of Goddess Durga to vanquish the unconquerable. Herein lies the biggest lesson our society and management world can learn - leadership qualities and gender independent.

What is Helicopter Money?

Helicopter Money is a phrase coined by economist Milton Friedman that signified a helicopter dropping currency from the sky. It refers to an unconventional monetary policy tool that means printing large sums of money and distributing it to the public to simulate a flagging economy. It is considered a way to jumpstart the economy during deflationary periods.

Developed markets, mainly Japan and those in Europe are struggling to stimulate their economies with loose monetary policies and even negative interest rates. As a result, global financial markets are now betting that central banks, starting with Japan, will resort to this concept to boost demand and inflation.

Deflation, or falling prices, can seriously damage an economy. This is because when prices are falling, consumers and businesses become reluctant to spend as they feel the item will be cheaper the next day. Japan and the Eurozone are experiencing this and therefore, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank have been resorting to different tactics to try and reverse this phenomenon.

This can have disastrous implications of its own. Things can spiral out of control when a government finances itself in such a way. This is because when there is inflation, there is a tendency to increase interest rates and in turn, borrowing costs. So, money loses its value and commerce can come to a standstill.

Though quantitative easing does consist of central banks using created money to buy government bonds, not everyone agrees that it is Helicopter Money. Though, it does mean printing money to fund government deficits. With quantitative easing, the central banks buy assets that the government has to pay back. Yet, some analysts equate Helicopter Money to the policies of countries like Japan dealing with a deflationary situation. 

Book Review: 48 Laws of Power

A Moral, Cunning, Ruthless and Instructive, this piercing work distils three thousand years of the history of power into Forty Eight well explicated Laws. As attention grabbing in its design as it is in its content, this bold volume outlines the laws of power in their unvarnished essence, synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun-Tzu, Carl Von Clausewitz, and other great thinkers.

Some Laws require prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master”), some stealth (“Law 3: Conceal your Intentions”), and some the total absence of Mercy (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally”), but like it or not, all have applications in real-life situations. Illustrated through the tactics of Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Kissenger, P T Barnum, and other famous figures who have wielded – or been victimized by – Power, these Laws will fascinate any reader interested in gaining, observing or defending against ultimate control.

The book takes each “Law” in turn and gives historical examples of those who follow the Law and fall to follow the Law. One will quickly see that the Laws of Power aren’t really Laws – they’re more like principles that will help in the art of gaining and exercising Power. Robert Greene uses the examples of Tesla and Edison to illustrate the several of the Laws. Tesla was the better inventor, but we’ve heard of Edison because Edison understood Power.

However, I do not agree with all of its ideas. This book contains examples of History from Sparta and Persia war, Chinese warriors, Scientists and Europe History. It does a brilliant job of explaining the logic and mindset of people who play such games to get power. If one want to understand why people play these games, this is a book well worth reading. It is interestingly written as well, with a lot of somewhat biased historical anecdotes to support each of the points.

My Belief is that real power comes from earning respect, and this is just a list of shortcuts that will easily fall apart under scrutiny. This book is useful for no other than it clues one in to how people tend to think; particularly those that are overly power hungry. For that reason alone, if one work in a competitive office environment, this book is worth reading just to understand the logic behind some of these games. Of course, playing these games yourself is highly likely to get one labeled as the office scumbag, so tread lightly on this stuff – use it to understand the behavior of others, not to try to gain power yourself.

Technology – Boon or Bane for Teenagers

Human beings are lazy by nature and would love it if other people did all their work. The introduction of technology has done precisely that. If you notice, over the years we have stopped writing letters, we now write informal emails. We do not remember phone numbers; we depend on our phones to remember them for us. We do not remember birthdates, Facebook does that for us and we also wish people online now instead of making that two minute personal phone call.

Teenagers are the biggest victims and addicts of technology. They are desperate to stay connected. They’re afraid to be left out, as they feel they will miss something. This leads to a constant feeling of needing to be “on”. It is like a substance addiction. Children are so overloaded with information that they cannot focus, thereby they retain very little. Teenagers are looking for instant gratification and acceptance of who they are from their peers and Social Media gives them that platform.

Every picture or post they upload gets them a few likes and comments. This boosts their morale and that triggers the release of Dopamine, the feel good chemical. Technology is also a boon. It has connected people from all over the world. Years ago, friends would lose touch with each other because there were limited models of communication. However, today one can keep in touch with all your friends all over the world via Whatsapp, Viber, Skype, Facebook and others. Technology has increased awareness.

Technology has helped reduce the use of paper. Technology has encouraged self-learning. It is a wonderful tool if we use it appropriately. Excessive exposure to any activity will become a bane, hence it is important to limit screen time. Technology can be used for reading, enhancing analytical skills, editing videos and more. We need to make the best use of the digital world. 

Sports Climbing in Olympics

Climbing has been around since man discovered mountains. There has always been a certain romanticism associated with it, and it has generally been kept out of the purview of international sport. Yet, there have been moments in the past when climbing has been competitive, not in the literal sense, as was the case in one of the most renowned battles between the Swiss and the Brits to first climb Mount Everest.

All that is likely to change as sport climbing will take centre stage at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. It was announced at the 129^th session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Rio de Janeiro in August, where in addition to sport climbing, four other sports – Surfing, Karate, Baseball/softball and skateboarding were included. Indoor climbing became a sport in itself and is today known as Sport Climbing.

According to International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) there are 25 Million people climbing regularly around the world, with 39% below the age of 18 years. The IFSC currently has 87 member federations, up 25% since it was founded a decade ago. Currently Sport climbing has three formats – bouldering, speed climbing, lead and it practiced on an artificial wall of varying heights, depending on the format. Bouldering features problems, which an un-roped climber must crack in a given time by getting to the top of the route – the climber who makes the maximum top, wins.

Speed Climbing sees two roped climbers go head to head on identical routes, where the first to get to the top wins. Lead involves roped climbing where the climber who goes the highest in a fixed time wins. Route setters are handed the task of designing the routes. These routes setters are climbers themselves and at times, they attempt the route before the competition to analyze it. The difficulty of these routes keeps increasing with each round.

There could not be a better venue for sport climbing Olympic debut than Japan. Yuji Hirayama triumph at the Lead World Cup in 1998 – the first by an Asian – and again in 2000 triggered a revolution for the sport that today has around 800,000 followers in more than 400 indoor facilities in the country. Things have been more organized with the Japanese since, with a coach, manager and a video team that travels with the climbers and analyze their performance. For the record, Japan took top spot in the national team ranking for bouldering in 2016.

However, the sport is dominated by climbers from Europe, where it has been practiced for decades. While France, Germany and England are some of the top countries in terms of facilities, sport climbing has seen a massive leap in popularity in Austria. In 2008, the country had 141 clubs, with 23,170 climbers, which jumped to 176 clubs and 64,140 climbers by 2016.

India has been a proving ground for a number of climbers over the years. Though India remains a hub for climbing and sport climbing is slowly finding its feet, it still trails the rest of the world. Indoor climbing facilities have cropped up in the metros, and the outdoors remains regular jaunts for the dedicated ones. But the sport is still governed by the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF) whose focus remains on mountaineering expeditions organized by them.

Mother Teresa: A Revered Nun

Mother Teresa, the revered nun whose work with the dying and the destitute made her an icon of the 20^th Century Christianity was declared a saint today. The elevation of the Nobel Peace Prize winner to Catholicism’s celestial pantheon comes on the eve of the 19^th anniversary of her death in the Kolkata slums with which she is synonymous.

Mother Teresa was honored with many awards throughout her life, from the Indian Padma Shri in 1962 to the inaugural Pope John XXIII Peace Prize in 1971 to Albania’s Golden Honor of the Nation in 1994. In 1964, during a visit to India, Pope Paul VI gave his ceremonial limousine to her which she offered to raise money for the leper colony.

Born to Kosovar Albanian parents in what is now Macedonia in 1910, Teresa died on 5^th September 1997. Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on 26 August 1910, in Macedonia, she was fascinated with missionaries from an early age, and by 12 she knew that she would commit herself to a religious vacation. Mother Teresa left home at the age of 18 and joined Sisters of Loreto in Dublin to become a nun. She never saw her family again in her entire life.

She was a household name around the world and also a citizen of India, the adopted homeland that embraced the diminutive and doggedly determined sister to the extent that she was granted a state funeral. Sister Teresa began teaching history and geography in Calcutta at St. Mary’s, a high school for the daughters of the wealthy. She remained there for 15 years and enjoyed the work, but was distressed by the poverty she saw all around her.

Her canonization has been completed in unusually quick time on the back of the extraordinary popularity she enjoyed during her lifetime and with the help of influential supporters. The late Pope John Paul II, was the pontiff at the time of Teresa’s death and he fast-tracked her beatification. When she was travelling from Calcutta to the Himalayan Foothills to participate in a retreat, she had a calling that Christ asked her to leave teaching and join the service of the sick and the poor.

The current pope, Francis, is also an admirer of women he sees as embodying his vision of a “poor church for the poor.” In 1982, she travelled to Beirut, Lebanon, to offer her service to the children of Christian dominated East Beirut and Muslim dominated West Beirut. The Missionaries of Charity, the order that Teresa created in 1950, now operates in 133 countries and comprise almost 5,000 male and female members.

Mother Teresa also founded the Missionaries of Charity Brothers in 1963, the contemplative branch of the Sisters in 1976, the Contemplative Brothers in 1979, and the Missionaries of Charity Fathers in 1984. During her life, Teresa was widely revered as a self-sacrificing force for good, despite ferocious criticism from prominent intellectuals including the British writer Christopher Hitchens and the Australian feminist academic Germaine Greer.

Rio Olympics 2016: Best and Worst Performances

Olympics were a high wire games, full of challenges and contrasts, abrupt shifts in mood and momentum. It was no doubt quite a mess backstage and yet quite a spectacle at the front of house.

Best Performances on Land

Bolt. Bolt. It was always Usain Bolt and he went three for three again in the gold medal department, holding off the fading threats (Justin Gatlin) and the rising star (Andre De Grasse) without looking as if he were quite giving it his full attention. Bolt times in major championships have been increasing for years now.

For the novelty factor and the wow factor, there was no surpassing American Simone Biles. Even if she was a three time all round world Champion, she was an Olympic rookie and her explosive and exuberant brand of gymnastics leapt off any screen in any culture.

Worst Performances on Land

There were no shortages of candidates, including the loose lipped American goalkeeper Hope Solo but only one genuine contender Ryan Lochte should definitely have stayed in the pool.

Best Performance in Water

Phelps. Phelps. It’s always about Michael Phelps and he won five more gold medals, this time at age 31. The Americans also got individual gold medals from five other swimmers, including members of the new wave Ryan Murphy and old guard Anthony Ervin. Americans stormed back to win 33 swimming medals in Rio more than three times what any other nation could master.

Worst Performance in Water

It took another collective performance to secure this prize, and it deserves to be shared by all those still unidentified individuals who contributed to turning the water in the Olympic diving pool from transparent blue to opaque green. Hydrogen peroxide? Inactive chlorine? Whatever the latest excuse, this was not the body of water that the world was worried about Rio keeping clean.

Best Performance on Water

Blair Tuke and Peter Burling were utterly dominant in the 49er class. Danuta Kozak of Hungary won three more gold medals in women’s Kayak, bringing her career total to five. The women’s eight from the US rowed to yet gold of their own. The oldest sailor in the Olympic fleet at age 54, Lange learned he had lung cancer but the Argentine still made it to starting line for South America’s first Olympics.

Worst Performance on Water

Rio’s scenic Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon was comparatively calm when Kazakhstan’s Vladislav Yakovlev managed just 10 strokes before capsizing in his single scull. Based on water quality studies of the lagoon before the Olympics, this was definitely not the place to get wet.

Best Performance in Midair

Bahamian sprinter Shaunae Miller desperate face first lunge across the line to beat Allyson Felix of the US in the women’s 400 meters is clearly on the shortlist. Brazil’s Thiago Braz da Silva. Coming into the games, his personal best in the pole vault had been 5.93 meters (19 feet 6 inches). But when he and the host nation needed it most, he cleared 6.03 meters to set an Olympic record and upset world-record holder Renaud Lavillenie of France.

Worst Performance in Midair

Russia’s Nadezhda Bazhina is no tourist athlete. She is a former European champion in the 3-meter springboard. But she made a splash for another reason in Rio: mistiming her takeoff during the preliminaries and leaving the board at a suboptimal angle.

Best Performance Per Capita

The Caribbean still rules. Tiny Grenada, with slightly more than 100,000 inhabitants, topped the standings on medalspercapita.com. But Grenada won only one medal, silver by sprinter Kirani James and the defending Olympic champion in the 400. This year, James was thoroughly overshadowed (outside Grenada) by South African Wayde van Niekerk’s gold medal and world record in Lane 8.

For planetary impact per capita, it remains best to go with Jamaica, which might have won only one medal for every 247,000 inhabitants but still has the world’s fastest man (Bolt) and fastest woman (newcomer Elaine Thompson).

Worst Performance Per Capita

Only two medals and no gold’s for India, well on its way to supplanting China as the world’s most populous nation. Time to retire the trophy? Certainly not, but perhaps time to get cricket into the Olympics (everything else seems to be included).