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Readers of the blog are perhaps too young to have read George Orwell's 1984. Its a fictional novel about a totalitarian future state where every individual is completely monitored and controlled. In fact the term Big Brother, originated in this novel. Well, here's news for you. Big Brother has indeed arrived - just 27 years late. If you hadn't heard, both Apple and Google are accused of recording and monitoring cellphone locations. Since none of us would move 4 inches from our cellphone henceforth in our lives, surely BB knows where we are and what we are doing. Privacy advocates are up in arms. I come from a different point of view. Is Google and Apple mad enough to want to be tracking my colourful life. That I leave for office exactly at 8.04 in the morning. That I spend the whole day like an idiot in the office. And that I come straight back home. And then go nowhere else. Leading a totally colourless life.  Earth shattering information. Take Gils for instance. We don...

Why does a Chinese internet company wish to get listed in the US ? I can't fathom the logic. Hence this post. The Chinese internet landscape is a strange one. Almost every one of the global majors is blocked. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Blogger, you name it and it is blocked. Instead there is a carbon copy of each one of them locally in Chinese. For Google, read Baidu . For Facebook, read Renren , for YouTube read Youku or Tudou , for Twitter read Sina Weibo or the dozens of similar clones. These are the ones that are wildly popular, having millions of users, only in Chinese and therefore almost exclusively used by Chinese. Never mind that these  are all censored , watched, bullied, etc etc by the jīndùn gōngchéng (The Great Firewall). This post is not about that cursed censorship. These sites are all by entrepreneur led start up companies , similar to the American originals.  And they all want to list and make huge money. Fair enough. But they seem to want to list in the U...

The season for tax returns is just over in the US. Its just beginning in India. Appropriate time to rave and rant on the nonsensically complex process of making out a tax return. No, I am not a tea party activist (I drink coffee and in any case, I wouldn't be seen dead with that rabble). I am just venting steam ahead of having to sit down and do the damned thing. Thankfully I only have to do an Indian tax return, but that is torture enough. Everybody knows that the famed Ramamritham absolutely loves Income Tax. Great opportunity for framing fiendish rules and impossibly complicated forms to fill. Just consider the following evidence. The first problem is to decide what form to fill. There are no less than 8 different forms you can fill. It all depends on whether you are a HUF or a BOI or a AOP. What if you can't figure out what those are and if you figure you are just a human being ??? Not sure - In Ramamritham's lexicon, normal human beings don't exist.  With delicious...

Ignore that other, number-based occasion going on this Wednesday and roll to The Dark Room to help us celebrate our huge deuce! The Business turns two this week and we couldn't be prouder of our little trainwreck. In honor of this new leaf, we've got a roster that’s packed hella fat. We’ve imported three strains of kind buds from LA to perform for you, as well as the dank home-grown shit you know and love. From the finest clubs ... in Los Angeles: Jake Weisman is a comedian and storyteller. He loves cats and podcasts, and he has two of each. One of his podcasts, The Morning After…Podcast, is about pornography, and it recently won Punchline Magazine’s 2010 Best New Comedy Podcast of the Year award. Just to remind you, he loves cats. Dave Ross is a stand-up comedian and the creator of the wildly successful Holy F*ck comedy show. He performs regularly at renowned shows and clubs across California, including What's Up Tiger Lily? and the Hollywood Improv. H...

This post is about a movie !  It takes some gall for a blogger who knows zilch about movies and doesn't see them, to do a post on something his readers are masters of. But that's the beauty of this medium - you can fearlessly propound  on things you don't have a clue about. I am told actors are key to movies ! This one stars a legend as a hero. Across continents, this man is reputed to be with the midas touch - anything he touches turns into gold. There are assorted villains, but the beauty of the movie is that you often don't know who the real villain is. There is a faceless foreign government, who everybody loves to bash these days (not America - in movies, America is all mom and apple pie). The only slight trouble is that there isn't a very pretty heroine. There is a lady actress who comes roaring to defend the hero , but alas, she will not set Zeno's heart go flutter flutter and her role casts her as a Minister. She does manage to be exotic though, speaking...

The Church of England has taken a line on executive pay. You may ask what has that body got to do with the world of business. Well , there is the small matter that the Church manages a £ 5.3 bn portfolio and is a shareholder in many companies. And, of course, it is a voice of morality, however much you may agree or disagree with it. The Church of England has said that it will not vote in favour of executive pay proposals that have bonuses more than 4 times the salary. While its influence as a shareholder might be somewhat limited, its voice has the benefit of a moral argument. Just a little while ago shareholders in HSBC voted to limit bonuses to a maximum of 10 times annual pay. Readers may pause here to consider the obvious question. Who on earth earns bonuses many times his salary ? This blogger has seen a lot in business. Outside of the financial services industry,  there is virtually no place where an employee can earn 10 times his salary as a bonus. So what's so special ab...

The proposed international treaty on the protection of broadcasters is inching forward after nearly 10 years of consideration and member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization and other stakeholders are moving toward consensus on the central elements of what it is to do and what is the object of the protection. Much of the rhetoric of stakeholders—particularly pay TV channels and sports rights organisations—has led many to believe it is about protecting their business models and revenue. They have done the proposed treaty a disservice. It is about protecting the value creating activities of broadcasters in content selection, packaging and distribution—something that is not protected by copyrights, but can be protected with a neighboring right. What the treaty is intent on doing is protecting the broadcast—in a signal and derivative of the signal—which embodies the broadcasters value creation activities and is the object of the proposed protection. The result may assist ...

This week the Business welcomes SF's own Kevin O'Shea, LA's own Stefan Stignei and welcomes back founding Businessman Alex Koll! Alex has been touring this great country of ours, performing his magical stand-up and exploring every diner, drive-in, and Zagat-rated rest stop along the way. He's back this Wednesday, with laser-like focus, a chip on his shoulder, and a dynamite recipe for chili con carne that will knock your socks o ff. Kevin O'Shea is a friend to the Business and a force in the San Francisco comedy scene. He's performed at Sketchfest and produced such shows as Funny Jerks, Blah! Blah! Blah!, and the short-lived cult sketch favorite, Frown Land. Please enjoy his dark, rough-and-tumble, absurdist comedy - but keep your hands where Kevin can see them, pilgrim. Stefan Stignei is a comedian from Los Angeles who performs at the Comedy Store, the Hollywood Improv, and many other spots. He's an expert on video games and a savant at one-...

Do you drive on the left of the road or the right of the road in India ?? Its not as stupid a question as it seems. Most of the British Commonwealth drives on the left of the road. India, being an honourable member of the Commonwealth, ostensibly follows the British tradition and drives on the left. But as with many things about India, its not all that simple. One of the axioms of Indian roads is that however wide they may be and however many lanes may be designed, traffic flows only in one lane on either side. This is the right hand most lane. The other lanes to the left, if they exist, are used in a multitude of creative ways. So you basically drive on the right and try and find an opening on the left to overtake. That makes you a right hand drive country, right ? Confusing ?? You see, the problem is that only the righthand most lane is open for driving continuously. That is where the truck laden with 24 tons of precariously balanced stuff, the autorickshaw (tuk tuk to some) and the ...

In conjunction with our upcoming two year anniversary, the Business is proud to announce we are invading our neighbor to the south: Los Angeles. That's right, we've taken it upon ourselves to initiate the bloody civil war we all want between the North and the South of California. The Business, San Francisco’s long running weekly alt-comedy showcase, heads south to Hollywood for a night. Four comedians (Sean Keane, Chris Garcia, Bucky Sinister, Alex Koll) each curate a portion of your evening, bringing you a variety of comedy for only five bucks. That mixture regularly includes special guests ranging from standup comics to authors to sketch performers to musicians and dancers. All forms and styles are exploited. It is the comedy equivalent to an "everything bagel." An exploited "everything bagel"...that explodes. Special guests and surprises to be announced as the date gets closer, so keep an ear on the internet tracks. The Business Friday, Apr...

No society understands the theory of relativity better than India - At least those elements of the theory of time. That time is not absolute , but is indeed relative. That's why the concept of Indian Standard Time is commonly used to explain the Indian's mastery of this subject. That strange introduction is meant to draw attention to the Cairn Vedanta deal, which is again held up by government indecisiveness. Cairn Energy, a UK listed company wants to sell its 62% stake in Cairn India to Vedanta. The balance shares are held by the state owned ONGC. Some time ago Cairn had signed an agreement whereby it need not pay any royalties out of the oil drilled - instead ONGC would pay the royalties. Now ONGC wants to renegotiate this contract as a precondition to a government approval of the sale of Cairn's stake to Vedanta. This post is not to discuss the merits of ONGC's stand. But one of the unintended consequences of the 2G scam is that nobody in the government is now brave ...

Andy Haynes returns to The Business once again to get his game on and go play. We love us some Haynes here at The Biz. In fact at this rate of return, Andy may knock Hari Kondabolu out of his long held title as "Fifth Businessman" if he keeps it up. (Don't get upset Thayer, technically you are the Fourth Businessman right now. We'll re-do all the calculations when Alex gets back). But this is definitely not a bad thing; it just highlights the fact that we love his style and jokes so much, we gotta keep him coming back. All that glitters is goooooold! And as is true every week, we have the regular Business men: Bucky, Sean and continuing to fill in for Alex, irregular Businessman Chris Thayer. It is also still true the show is only five dollars, starts at 8pm, and is burrito friendly.

Today's post is a guest post I made in Preeti's blog. Preeti is a famous blogger, writer of two books, artist and a very nice and warm person. She was very kind to invite me to write a piece in her blog and who can resist the ask of a pretty and intelligent lady ! The post is here .

Editors matter. The March 28-April 4, 2011, edition of the struggling news magazine Newsweek —which I admittedly have not read in years— provides some of the finest articles I have read in many months, illustrates the limits of online and social media, and shows why editors matter. There is great benefit from both edited and unedited media and I don’t believe they have to be seen in dichotomous choices for the future of media. But I believe those who argue they don’t need to edited media doom themselves to narrowness and ignorance. If I relied only on the links I receive daily from colleagues on Facebook, my news alerts for topics of interest, or digital listings of stories, I would miss the most important contribution of edited media—the service editors provide by reviewing and thinking about the world and putting journalists to work to provide a coordinated understanding of the available information. This week’s Newsweek epitomises that reality. Although I often have my attentio...

If you wanted to understand leadership, you couldn't have done better than to be glued to the TV screens in India yesterday. It was the final of the Cricket World Cup, it was played in Mumbai and India won, setting off a celebration, the likes of which is  unlikely to be seen anywhere in the world - not even if and when Brazil wins the football World Cup in Rio. This post is not about the victory , but about the leadership of the captain MS Dhoni. They say leaders are born and not made and he seems to be a perfect example of that cliche. Early on in his career, some brilliant selector spotted his leadership skills and elevated him as the captain of the country. And today he has pulled perennially underachieving India to the top of the world cricket. Indian teams have been as talented before, but the deadly element in the mix now is a leader. Just look at the calmness on the field even when things are going disastrously wrong. With that steely calmness, he gets everybody to claw the...