1. The approaching digital news avalanche
Media people Shekhar Gupta, Raghav Bahl, Samar Halarnkar are all turning online in their quest for spinning news. Some like Gupta are keen to keep a foot in print, even though the medium is not exactly in its prime. Gupta’s venture—Mediascape Pvt Ltd—is self-funded. Ditto for founder of TV-18 Raghav Bahl, who will be starting Qunitillion Pvt Ltd with the Rs 700 crore or so he got after parting with RIL. As for Halarnkar, Wipro chairperson Azim Premji and philanthropist Rohini Nilekani, it is learnt, are bankrolling a portal for debating public-policies and social issues. Omidyar Network and The Guardian are also working on digital ventures in India. Watch this space.
2. Andhra’s pickled family planning
Fresh from a week-long tour to Japan, Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is keen that the country helps his state in developing ports and power plants. However, Naidu doesn’t want the people of Andhra Pradesh aping Japan’s population planning. He feels that as a natural consequence of development, “egos also go up”. Marriages and babies are pushed to the back-burner. As a result, Japan has more elderly people than young in its society, which Naidu says, is harmful. Meanwhile, the YSR Congress, which is convinced that Naidu’s visit to Japan was more a pleasure trip, has called for a white paper on the investments attracted.
3. Great PR Pie in the sky
Have the partners at India’s foremost public relations firm Perfect Relations fallen apart? Multiple sources insist that the firm’s public face Dilip Cherian has sold his stake to long-time partner Bobby Kewalramani. For some time now, there has been “restructuring noise” around the large homegrown PR firm. Sources say that the firm’s attempts to sell off to MSL Group, the PR firm owned by French advertising conglomerate Publicis Groupe, fell through a few weeks ago. In the last few months, Perfect Relations has seen some top level exits, including CEO Valerie Pinto, who quit the firm after 16 years. When contacted, Cherian denied that he had sold his stake.
Math
2,50,000 Permissions needed every year by Diageo to run its liquor business in India, according to CEO Ivan Menezes.
The Battle For NREGA
As civil society went to the streets to protest the BJP’s “attack” on the rural jobs scheme, here’s a primer.
Rs 20 cr The estimated cost of building and stocking up a fire station; incidents of industrial fires are growing.
Mojo
The sideways elevator
German firm ThyssenKrupp has created what it calls “the holy grail” of the elevator industry: a system that moves elevators sideways. Powered by magnetic levitation, it ends dependence on ropes or cables. This also means we could be seeing even taller buildings soon.
Mind
This week we learnt about…skydiving oil prices
Softening global crude oil prices (down 40 per cent since June to below $70 a barrel) spell both good and not-so-good news. For India, it would mean a substantially lower import bill and thus lower inflationary pressures. It also eases the monthly expenditure on self-driven vehicles, though, thanks to the government’s opportunistic increase in excise, fuel prices will not fall as much as they should. But the cost of non-subsidised cooking gas will fall along with products that cost more every time fuel costs rise. Unfortunately, the easing of crude prices also means consumers turn away from green fuels and technologies.
