Is the [Karnataka State] Government for the People?

When you read the article titled Karnataka govt to foot Ambareesh's Rs 1.16-cr medical bill, you have to wonder what kinds of considerations prompted the Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to sanction reimbursement of ₹1.16 Crores.

Uber in Bangalore, and the Impact of Social Networking.

ber, the Silicon Valley startup transportation company that recently raised a capital of $1.2B at a "post-money" valuation of $18.2B, has transportation services that serves the city of Bangalore, along with other prominent Indian cities.

What is interesting about this startup company? According to CEO Travis Kalanick:

"So what is that vision?… It’s a reflection of our mission to turn ground transportation into a seamless service. Basically make car ownership a thing of the past…"

Make car ownership a thing of the past. Wow! With cloud computing, we have made, for most enterprises (and people), "big" computer ownership a thing of the past. With streaming music and video, we have CD and DVD ownership a thing of the past. Now, entrepreneurs are working to make car ownership a thing of the past. Nice. What is next? I digressed.

Having experienced the Uber service in the United States, and as a frequent visitor to Bangalore, it was necessary for me to conduct an exercise of comparison between Uber, and a particular taxi service I have used in Bangalore, Meru Cabs.

From the screenshot you see at left, of a page from Meru Cabs' web site, you can see the following:

Rate for first 4 km = ₹80
Rate after 4 km = ₹19.50/km

So, for a 40 km ride, say from the airport, you would incur a fare of ₹80 + (40-4)*₹19.50 = ₹782.

The UberBLACK service, which is somewhat similar and whose screenshot you see on the right, has the following tariffs in Bangalore:

Base fare = ₹80 (irrespective of total distance)
Time component = ₹2/minute
Distance component = ₹18/km

So, for a 40 km ride, involving 1 hour, then, you would have a total fare of ₹80 + 2*60 + 40*₹18 = ₹920.

If you are able to avail of the service when certain discounts are offered — say of 49% between 11:00 am and 5:00 pm as seen by the tweet on the Uber screenshot — you could incur only 51%*₹920 = ₹470. And, Meru charges a slightly higher rate, between midnight and 6:00 am.

Thus, the power of social networking may provide Uber a slight advantage of being able to attract a larger number of customers provided, of course, you can make use of social networking as you land in Bangalore.

Of course, the comparison may not be perfect; but, nevertheless, it is useful to have this comparison in mind.

Google's 'Know Your Candidates Tool' for India's Lok Sabha 2014 Elections.

Bangalore South Constituency Contestants, Lok Sabha 2014 

oogle's engineers have created an interesting interactive web site of India's 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

In the Bangalore South constituency, where Nandan Nilekani, former chief of the Unique Identification Authority of India, is one of the contestants, there are 21 others. 22 people in all for 1 single Lok Sabha seat. (In other words, the 'best' of these 22 contents will get elected to the lower house of the parliament.

A Public Request to the KSCA Authorities (in Bangalore).

Image from Wikipedia,
under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Cricket is a sport that has entered the youth of India in a big way.

That being the case, why not use the sport as a platform to motivate and mold India's youth? Recently, within a span of a few weeks, I had occasion to visit both the Lord's Cricket Ground in London and the KSCA Stadium in Bangalore.