[This was a blog piece written as part of a Appreciation Course on Urban Governance by Takshashila Institution. This article relies on multiple sources for information. All the sources are credited at the end of the article] An arterial road or an internal road. The grey colour Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) van arrives. A few…
[First published in Mint Print Edition, 17th May 2024.] “To erase the line between man and machine is to obscure the line between men and gods,” says the line in the teaser clip for the movie Ex-Machina released in 2015. What technology does for us has never been a topic for a discussion or debate….
Much has been written about ‘The Attention Economy’. I heard about this term only a couple of months back. While I haven’t understood all the philosophical moorings behind this term, the fact that money is spent all the time to get people’s attention and there is a whole economy behind that is simply baffling. When…
First things first. The title is a straight lift from a regular column in Mint. And plagiarism ends there. After driving to office all this while in a car, I am now back to Mumbai’s lifeline – the suburban rail. I am a firm supporter of public transport. Even those days when I was driving…
Marketing initiatives by religious groups sounds funny (even God needs the 4Ps) and therefore continues to interest me. Following the Eastpoint church’s path (see the earlier story in this blog ‘And God said: In Digital I trust’), www.preachingtoday.com from Christianity Today International discovers that digital initiatives pay when it comes to achieving marketing objectives. The new case study…
I have always believed that it is only a matter of time before the temples, churches and mosques in the country (and the world) become full fledged business institutions, with targets, P&L, Balance sheet and listing on stock exchanges. In a fast moving, commercialized world, peace of mind, stress-relief etc. comes with a cost and…
Malayalees’ love story with elephants is centuries old. No temple festivals are complete without a procession with an Elephant. And it is not just temples. Even churches and some mosque festivals have elephants that add glamour and pride to the festivities. Not surprisingly the man-animal conflict and elephant revenge stories are as old as the…