Entrepreneurship in Bengal: A Blueprint for India’s Next Stage of Development

You have heard much about Jyoti Basu’s Bengal, Mamata Banerjee’s Kolkata, and various other dysfunctional views of the erstwhile capital of British India. Today, I am going to introduce you to Abhishek Rungta’s Kolkata, Pallav Nadhani’s Kolkata, Bimal Patwari’s Bengal, Srish Agarwal’s Bengal, and Arijit Bhattacharyya’s Bengal.

Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: That’s what I do, always. I don’t even bother too much with the interview. I give them a trial project and see how they feel about it. Fabio Rosati: Some people like to interview because they get to understand, for example, in customer support, if the communication is very good. Communication is really

Read Full Article »

Kolkata Memoirs: Two Short Stories on Kindle

Readers, some of you know that I have a deep interest in literature. I have, from time to time, written fiction and poetry but have not shared that much with you. Well, recently, I read about a young writer who has been using Kindle and e-books to share her work with her readers, and decided

Read Full Article »

India’s Film Industry

The San Francisco International Film Festival is under way, and this weekend, we saw a couple of movies there. Of these, one was a 3-hour Bengali film called Calcutta, My Love by Goutam Ghose based on Samaresh Majumdar’s acclaimed novel, Kalbela, which I had read in my teens.

Pellejo Soco

And here is a (rather bad) picture of Pellejo Soco, a Cuban band performing at Biscuits and Blues last night. They draw from Latin pop, Brazilian, Flamenco, Afro-Cuban and Jazz influences, and sang one of my favorite Latin songs, Besame Mucho, which I hadn’t heard in a while.

Offshoring Secrets: Why Small Tech Companies Should Offshore

By Utkarsh Rai, Guest Author, Author of “Offshoring Secrets” I came across this article in Business week July 2007 “Why Small Tech Companies Aren’t Outsourcing”. There are multiple reasons mentioned in the article which are portrayed as hindrances for small tech companies to outsource. I do not agree with the article and here are my

Read Full Article »

As India Builds (Part 8)

In the front portico, several cousins assembled around Wall Street banker Ronti’s Blackberry and marveled. As I joined them, eyes darted to me. “You probably have one of these?” “Sure, I have a Treo,” I replied, my eyes glazing over the Blackberry, to focus on the marble staircase on which, at four, I fell and

Read Full Article »

As India Builds (Part 6)

The face of Calcutta is degenerating fast. Droves of glittering shopping malls welcome young Calcuttans – since among other things India is also importing Retail Therapy. A new credit card industry booms. The expanding middle class rejoices in the sudden Western availability of product after product after product. Satya Paul saris and Giorgio Armani jackets

Read Full Article »