Unlocking value of disputed property

In almost every city I go I see in the busiest commercial streets or in the poshest of localities a plot of land desolate, dark and crying hoarse that its disputed. When I compare the posh houses or busy shops around with this sad piece of land one can't help but be disappointed at the cost of lost opportunity and locked economic value. Such disputed properties are found everywhere but the more expensive and valuable it is, bigger the incentive for people to fight years of legal battle on it.

Here is a proposal to tackle this issue in a creative fashion. We will not shortchange the property owners and also bring back the value in the economy. So here goes - If a property dispute exceeds 7 years in court, the court hearing the case can appoint a financial institution (like the ubiquitous SBI) to auction the property and put the proceeds in a fixed deposit (FD). Henceforth, this FD will be treated as the disputed entity in lieu of the property. The government (or the court) could be the trusty of the FD till a settlement is reached.

As you would notice this proposal has no government intervention (except for passing a law to this effect) reducing corruption in the process. The property is released for realizing its economic potential and the proceed of the auction too comes inside the banking system in cash. Now even if the case drags on for many more years this money will flow in the economy through the bank and is available for credit.

I think some few thousand crore worth of economic value can be released and thousands of jobs will be generated in construction and retail segment. This is not considering the value of extra money put in the bank.

What do you think - hare brained or a pragmatic solution?

If you have access to better legal/constitutional advise or want to pick holes in the proposal or better - have some suggestion please add a comment below or send me a mail. Based on the response I plan to setup an online petition and then approach some MPs to table a bill.

Why IBM promotes linux

Read a very interesting article on what is the economic rationale for the likes of IBM to support linux. The basic theory is that if you commoditize the complement of a product, its price goes up. Too cryptic? read the full article.

Pricing-Vricing

A nice article from Joel on Pricing and why it is so difficult to get right. I especially liked his bits about why enterprise software is overpriced since I could relate to our sales process in Talisma.

An interesting concept he explores is consumer surplus (tapping customers in a different price segment) and there are two examples I could see in the Indian market. First is the Shampoo Sache - right now a sache costs 50% (price/ml) if you compare the cost with a bottle. But most people who can afford bottles buy it anyway because of its convenience, they assume (wrongly here) that bigger is cheaper and because the sache doesn't gel well with their expensive bathroom.

The other is pizza hut where Indian flavored pizzas are far cheaper than western flavors. Smart move where pizza hut because usually western flavors are preferred by a crowd that can pay more. So the pricing is decided by customer's ability to pay rather than the product's worth.

Products for the Internet Age

The internet's promise as a disruptive technology is being realized in ways unimagined. A virtual island was sold by Project entropia for 26000 dollars. The buyer can lease, rent or sell plots to other cyber citizens for real cash and also charge for mining rights etc. Is this an indication of a real big cyberworld in the making? Even today possesing a big island or a yacht is more a function of vanity than utility. Now if the same vanity were available for a piece of the virtual world, it might put less pressure on our precious real earth.

Already amongst the hacker and gamer community the social standing of a person lies in how good a hacker or gamer that person is. Looks, size of car, branded cloths, price of house, pay packet etc are irrelevant. As more and more people join the techie crowd corporates will see a sizable market which their current aspirational products can't address. New business models and product ideas are required for this set of people. I recently heard of a valley based Indian enterpreneur who is setting up a ratings network in South Korea (the most networked country today) using which gamers can access a online rating repository and see the social standing of a fellow gamer.

More discussion on the virtual island here on slashdot.

Mathematics and Sex

This is an interesting title to say the least :-)
I just read the book review and will get the book as soon as my 20% discount store gets a copy.

Pakistani hindi pop

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 05:44:41 -0500, Mahesh Vemula wrote:
> must say that the blog was good but i was really surprised with that
> exclamation
> dangling at the end of the ... wait i lll quote
> a fashion show in the middle and ended with a performance by a
> Pakistani pop group that sings in Hindi!
>
> im not sure why that exclamation dangling out even "Junoon" sings in
> Hindi remember the Sayoneee and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan also sang a couple
...
Well the exclaimation needs some explaination (i am sure ogden nash would have put a good spin on this line :-)

Junoon and Nusrat sang mainly sufi songs but strings is totally a new phenomena since their lyrics are pure hindi and I think they sing mainly for the indian market. Adnan sami is another paki who sings in hindi (well he wanted to migrate here but his citizenship app got rejected). There was Ali Haider too - Purani jeans aur guitar but Strings is the first pop group based in pakistan that sings for the Hindi pop market (correct me if I am wrong here)

All in all I think a good thing though. India is a bigger and more progressive market and if we can attract good talent in Pakistan to address us rather than their own, its a case of mutual benefit. And if we would get some of these pop groups to actually move to india with citizenship and all, it would score some good brownie points. For one it would send a clear signal that India is a more desirable place to live than Pakistan and these people could dispel some of the misconceptions about india that the pakistan keeps spreading there.

Just a small example of how economic considerations will create circumstances that will overshadow politics of the day.

Celebrating India the bangalore way

Yesterday I went to the Bangalore Habba – a cultural event spread over a week. The event itself is a private initiative by Artist Foundation for Arts and is the best performing arts event in Bangalore. There is another event for fine arts – the Bangalore International Arts Festival - also a private initiative. The government had no role in these events but gave its full support for regulatory approvals, traffic management etc. There were enough sponsors; event management was professional and the events themselves were of great quality. Both these events are just 2 year old and are an indication of the way things are going to progress in India. People will come up with viable and commercially attractive cultural extravaganzas celebrating rich Indian heritage instead of old politicians giving lip service to “great Indian culture”. Late Protima Bedi’s Nrityagram (also near Bangalore) is another example of the same. Nrityagram also organizes ‘Vasant Habba’ – a once a year all night performing arts event.

The best part is that all these events are free for the public. This a luxury enjoyed in a consumerist society since people indirectly pay for these events through the goods and services they consume. People lamenting growth of consumerism would will do well note these advantages. And the government would do well to reduce taxes and leave more money in the public’s hand. Imagine what Bangalore Habba would be like if the Government were to use the tax payers money for this purpose!

Even the format of yesterday evening was keeping with the times. The evening started with Pandit Shivkumar Sharma’s splendid performance with the Santoor, had a fashion show in the middle and ended with a performance by a Pakistani pop group that sings in Hindi!

Bangalore is leading change in India in more ways than one. A sizable young pool of rich software techies is only helping in the cause. In times to come software industry will just be one of things Bangalore is known for.