i phone....cellphone or a status symbol??

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Go on the link given above, n you’ll be flashed with the tag line i Phone 3G, “Twice as fast, Half the price” just scroll down and you’ll see, below the pic of I phone, price of this cool gadget is written and my god its really as cool as the gadget is. This stunning gadget costs for $199, to express it in Indian currency it costs approx around 7960 INR. But since the last month, this gadget is being sold at a freak price of whopping Rs31000 n Rs36000, for 8GB n 16GB models respectively. Why the hell this phone is costing so much in India. Is it because of export duty? or some kind of freak tax is the culprit??

Above reasons should merely add some 5000 bucks more to its price in US. The culprit is nothing but the portrayal of the cell phone as status symbol in Indian market. And thanks to service providers, they are ready to take on the market with their strategy of wooing the customers by bringing such gadgets with such price which is totally incompatible with its features. Search out the web n you’ll found the raining disadvantages of the phone, which makes this gadget unworthy of its so hyped publicity n skyrocketed price.

The pinnacle of the foolishness is, it is launched despite the fact that, India still not having the 3G spectrum network, a 3^rd generation mobile network which makes this cell phone a amusing gadget with web pages appearing at the lightning speed, flipping and zooming them with your fingertips which makes the browsing experience memorable. But still I would prefer to wait till the end of November 08 for HTC dream, a cell phone with Google’s Android OS, than buying the i phone at such mad price and hope you will do the same.

Hitting the Gold's Eye

After every 4 years, India looks forward to the Olympics with hope that at least one sportsman will return with a Gold medal but till the finale of the competition our expectations are gets curtailed to "At least a one Medal". But finally it came to an unassuming young man. Yes, Abhinav Bindra's Beijing 2008 Olympic Gold in 10 m Air Rifle ended the 28 years old dry spell. Bindra's 10.8 points winning final shot left the defending champion & silver medalist Qinan Zhu in tears and bagged the India's first ever individual Gold in the 108 years old modern Olympics history. Surely India is not going to forget the name of this hero forever.
But on the other note this moment tickled my mind to think why it taken so long time to came in to reality. Definitely credit goes to Abhinav's determination, grueling efforts & the killer instinct. But then is it mean that previous Olympians lacked these properties? definitely not. Then whats the difference this time? Along with the personal physical and mental efforts there is a need of money and stability to facilitate the basic needs and sporting paraphernalia. Games like shooting needs a lot of investment in terms of shooting ranges, guns and ammunition, whereas it lacks the financial benefits as that of in games like Cricket. Sportsman needs financial stability to fully concentrate on his practice. Fortunately such stability is their in case of Abhinav. Thanks to his personal shooting range in the backyard of his home which is fully financed by his family, where he closeted himself for eight hours of a day for his passion. But everybody is not lucky enough. In India most of the sports other than Cricket are surviving on the funds by Government. Which made the things even worse. When you have future of the sports decided by the babus, netas and bureaucrats you will only get hefty reports, not the winning ideas. Abhinav's gold further proved that in India good things can only happen when their is a private initiative. The best example could be IPL 2008 where the private initiative set the ball rolling for cricket. It also opened more opportunities for the talent which is going to be ignored. But its the misery of the other sports that they are treated like an orphan in this Cricket crazy nation. Many businessmen, film stars are ready to pour millions on Cricket, many state governments poured millions on 20-20 World Champion Indian team but Indian hockey team's Asia cup winning triumph went unnoticed. I really feel pitty when the worlds most popular game like Football has no value in India. I yet not heard any big motivational steps for the AFC Challenge cup winning Indian football team.
At least from now we have to take lesson from this, that more and more private initiative need to come up. Abhinav himself quoted this in his blog & its really a need for the survival of the other sports. Corporates should establish the trusts like Laxmi Mittal's 'Champion's trust' which will help to remove the tag of "OTHER SPORTS" which I have used throughout this article. I conclude my blog with the hope that in distinct future we'll see more and more corporate trusts which will create abundant sporting talent which will never let India starved for the medal.

Will India make it through for 2020 Olympics??

Yesterday, when I was watching the grand opening ceremony of Olympics in Beijing, I was highly astonished to see such a extravagant event being presented by the Chinese, China had world at it's feet for the eve, I couldn't deny that I felt bit envious while watching the big bash. Soon I have found that India is bidding for 2020 Olympics. Earlier Indian Olympics Association (IOA) had decided to bid for 2014 Asian games & 2016 Olympics. But IOA given up with the unsuccessful bid for 2014 Asian games. They were planned to utilize the infrastructure being developed in Delhi for preceding 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Even as the Beijing Olympics 2008 got underway on Friday, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram expressed hope that India would be able to stage the Olympic Games in 2020. It will be a proud movement for every Indian if we make it through. But at the same time its a big challenge, since hosting a Olympics is a extravagant affair and lot of money is need to be poured on it. Along with its going to test our event management skills, especially on the silhouette of the terrorist activities happened past days. India need to underwent a lot of reformation to successfully stage the Olympics. The India 2020 which is dreamed by former President Mr. APJ Abdul Kalam is need to be made into reality. Right now we are rampaging in every sectors except the Infrastructure. This is the only arena where we are still crawling in mediocrity. Infrastructure boom is necessary, since its the base for every industry. A boom in infrastructure will eventually flourish the other sectors also. It will attract more and more foreign investors, which will also increase the employment opportunities in India. Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram asserted that "India has a great future because of its people who are its greatest strength, he said the younger generation is confident and full of ideas, hope, pride, enthusiasm and ambition", while speaking in a function. But we need to create the opportunities to utilize above mentioned qualities. So by keeping all this in mind we need to put our best foot forward & make this dream come true.

I will follow up more on this in my upcoming blogs.