Fueling Thoughts

It is impossible to ignore the hottest topic of the Indian Automotive world which is the not-so-sudden exit of Harley Davidson from the Indian market.  I wouldn't poke a hornet's nest discussing the bikes; if people spend their money on a 2-wheeled jackhammer or vibrator is purely their choice, but the company has had it share of gross failings in the country.  From ignoring customer's grievances which led to a slew of lawsuits, to charging exorbitant price of spares and servicing to lacklustre overpriced entry models, it had been following a potholed path where brand image and fanboys weren't enough to make their Indian foray either stable or profitable.  And yet, one undeniable fact staring us in the face is that neighbouring Thailand continues being their assembly and export hub for the entire ASEAN region. Though not privy to their internal doings and with any real contact left in the automotive sector, one thing that I can say for sure am confident it will be vouch...

I was asked my opinion by a niche player in the renewable Energy sector about the viability of setting up a pilot unit with a Power Purchase Mode of operation in India.  My reply was swift :"Don't touch the power generation sector In India with a barge pole unless you want to lose your investment, irrespective of what a hustler may have pitched or a government officer promised. But you may come in as equipment vendors, that to after ensuring that costs and profits are covered in the 80 % of the quoted price."  Instead of wasting time on a long narrative describing the woes plaguing the sector from defaulting, corrupt DISCOMs( Power Distribution Companies) to how multi-million dollar investments are turning NPAs from the Mini and Micro Hydel Projects of the early 2000s to the Gas Turbine Thermal Stations from the Reliance Gas Bubble days, then the Wind Power generators who have lost their wind and now the solar industry on the threshold of folding like a house of cards: I ...

Been there, done that and got a T-Shirt!!  Nepal's iconic backpacker's souvenir is the "NO-T Shirt" which started off as an optimistic but ineffectual attempt at keeping tourist touts and hustlers at bay during the "Dum maro Dum" Hippie Era. There is even a rip-off Varanasi version with the same words only with Hashish replaced with Ganja and an additional line "No Boat." As to why I remembered this piece of nostalgia from my long-past wandering days of my misspent youth, is the number of times I am forced to say NO!! Only not to touts and panhandlers, but loud-mouthed freeloaders hustling free service posing as potential clients or future partners. In fact, I am seriously intending to print a similar message on the back of my Visiting Cards: NO-Free Consultancy, NO-Free Write-ups, NO-Free Concept Notes, NO-Free Market Overviews, NO-Free Service, NO-Free Visits, NO-Pun Intended!! Not that I have any illusions it will shame them into offering to pay...

For over a year, I have wasted a tremendous amount of time and effort trying to get development funds from various startup programs, incubators, NGOs, Overseas agencies with almost zero results.  I got at least 15 rejections for a development grant from India and overseas in one year.   Yes, my work is niche technology, but with no local or imported analogues, quite indispensable in defence sectors and tremendous social impact potential. So why the mass rejections??   At some point, I re-read all my applications to find out what's so wrong and  after thorough introspection and revision of my presentations, write-ups, strategy and my product offering, dawned the realisation that most of these programs are a charade with the dice loaded against most applicants.  They are like Facebook, which exists and profits only due to its users who are the free content providers. For almost all Startup funds and Incubators, their raison d'etre is to collect as many applic...

Recently, a company CEO while trying to push his niche and pricey Marine batteries, boasted that they were selected as OEM suppliers by the winners of a large Indian inland vessel tender, more specifically, the Kochin Metro's, water metro project.  Being both well-connected in this field and also keeping myself abreast with all the latest developments, I was quite surprised not hearing about this development. Thus, I called up the bid winning party to confirm whether it is true.  "Not at all, the principal rejected their technology, and so we are providing a competitor's product." was their reply. So, apart from spouting blatant lies, he also took the person in front of them for an uninformed fool: A seasoned Inland Water transportation specialist, at that.  No excuses for giving such a company a miss even if their product is good and competitively priced.  I will, and shall also make sure that everyone I work with does it as well.

  A favourite grouse of my fellow North-east Indians(many with an acute case of angry nigger syndrome) is that the rest of the countrymen know nothing about their area, confuse them with Nepalis or Chinese, think that tea grows in every backyard and so on and forth. That is, till they are reminded that they too know nothing about places like Kerala or Chhattisgarh and the people who live there. Because till about a decade or two back, the few times anyone ventured out was either to study, enrol their children in an educational institution or for health check-ups or cancer treatment in Vellore.  Besides, ignorance about other states and the geography of the country is endemic everywhere. My favourite example being an NCO from Signals Corps of the Indian Army who travelled with me on a train to Goa for some advanced training at the Army Signal Training Center in Bambolim.  An M.Sc. degree holder by his own admission, in his excitement of getting to see Goa and the sea, the ...

Linkedin is a platform that had first morphed from a professional and cribbing HR's network into a jobseekers forum, now is just a little more refined Facebook with kitty videos and children's drawings (at least previous work's drivers and handymen don't send me friend requests, if it sounds elitist so be it, I don't GAF). We have all manners of Deshbakts(Modi cultists), Trump, Russia and China bashing self-righteous inquisitors, hysterical climatistas, weeping willows, trolls of every form, and plagiarists aplenty. Ghost-written posts by high and mighty influencers to those promoted by paid ones.  Where having 10,000 connects equal to adding 2 inches in the chest or between the legs, depending on your gender. And now we have the LinkedIn Jail, Censorship and the threat of being deplatformed without a warning. In short the writing on the wall says, time to redevelop your website and start blogging there in parallel, because you never know when LinkedIn will deem yo...

I  know, I have used a trite, populist headline to get your attention and hope I succeeded. After all in my abysmally short avatar as an automotive writer, the question popped at me at every step was how to get better fuel economy from a car, motorcycle or even a lorry; not that many bothered to listen to my reply or ever tried out what I suggested. Everyone wanted a magic-wand solution, but I usually started out with “when did you last check your tire pressure?” I  entered the automotive press with travelogues, motorcycling ones. Soon came an offer to write a monthly column for a now defunct Automotive publication. Though it was India's first, it had by then already changed numerous publishers and the incumbent editor informed me that he was publishing it for the last 9 months, without any of his staff having a driving license. Nine months later after penning a monthly motorcycling column along with a series of travel and general automotive articles a...

“What do you mean mill-scale formation would reduce if I start using Emulsified Fuels, I sell the mill-scale!!”                                                                             But at what rates? I asked.                                                                  ...