Sujavna 1:13

Giri at 1000 hours on 23rd May 2011

Hello and welcome to a delayed posting of my blog, which has been necessitated because of my travel plans.

Thanks also to those readers who have been sending their comments by email to me. It would be great if you could pot your comments on the blog itself, as that would let other readers join in the conversations.

So what comes out on top of the charts this time round for inclusion in Sujavna? To me, undoubtedly, it is the International Fire and Security Exhibition and Conference (IFSEC) at Birmingham. More correctly, it is about the absence of the Indian industry at the show - Taiwan, China, USA, Japan, EU members, Argentina, Brazil, UAE were all there with a sizeable presence of exhibitors and delegates, yet there was just one small Bangalore-based video-analytics company from India. Does this tell a lot about an industry that is perceived to be a $1.2 billion and growing upwards of 10%.

Which brings me to my main theme for the week – should there not be a more-concerted India brand strategy for some of these potential sunrise commercial sectors? Can we use iconic brand ambassadors (such as Sachin Tendulkar and Shah Rukh Khan) to reinforce the strengths and attractiveness of these industries to global players?

Another interesting experience that I had this week (and which made me think more widely) was a BBC-One parody on the news that was. (Sample this: Vacancy / Job opening of the week – Chief Rapist at the IMF!). And I thought – how about getting all the main news readers of various Indian TV channels into a room once week, and ask them to read the breaking news that they had reported during the week, but using a different context and making a parody of the situation!. Would such a programme not “un-deify” our news readers, making them more human to TV viewers and also bring out excellence in humour (which Indian audiences surely need more of!)?

Signing off here, but wishing you a great week ahead.