Animation Industry

The Indian animation industry is moving away from being just a back office for Hollywood studios and other international production houses. It is now creating original content for the local market.

With the success of animated movies like Hanuman and Bal Ganesha, production houses and studios are realizing the potential of the domestic market. Apart from animated movies, animation series on television with original content have also been garnering huge TRP ratings such as J Bole To Jadu on Nickelodeon, MAD on Pogo among others.

Adventures of Hanuman (narration by the deep voice guy, heh!)

Bal Ganesha - the cute little elephant god

Bala Pandavas - epic Indian story of Mahabharata

Over the next four years the growth in domestic demand for TV/Broadcast animated content is projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 49.5 per cent. It is forecast the domestic market will be worth Rs 150 crores ($1.5 billion) in 2008 and will touch Rs 300 crores ($3 billion) by 2010.

Animation studios:

Green Gold

Graphiti

Crest Animation

Ojas tech

There is so much content that can be produced for children and adults. I watched the drama version of Mahabharata for almost 8 years and still don't remember everything. It is exciting to see a lot of original content from in-house studios.

Source:

AgencyFAQ

Number portability atlast

I'm sure people are tired of changing mobile numbers everytime they change service providers and get calls from unknown contacts.

A lot of people have been crying foul about the delay in TRAI’s recommendation. Reliance has been waiting to get a GSM license, and it was alleged, primarily by the GSM operators, that the number portability was being worked upon, primarily to help Reliance. Once the scheme is in place, it was alleged, Reliance can offer lucrative schemes to allure customers from the Reliance CDMA service to its new, GSM service.

Source:

WATBlog

Norwest Venture Partners Plans To Launch $1 Billion Fund

Norwest has just opened its second India office by roping in former Motorola veep Mohan Kumar as India-based executive director to be based out of Bangalore. It had recently brought in Niren Shah as the country head for India which also marked Norwest setting up its Indian office in Mumbai.
Pramod Haque told the media in Bangalore that the focus would increasingly be on harnessing and leveraging the reservoir of product and process innovation — much of it internet driven — that is available in India.
The venture fund has direct investments in tech driven India-based entities such as Sulekha.com, Yatra, Persistent Systems and Adventity.

Source:
Norwest Venture Partners Plans To Launch $1 Billion Fund

Having trouble intrepreting Financial videos?

If you have trouble what those guys from Wall Street are talking about, this video will give a good chuckle.

Source:
Bigpicture

Videocon is trying to buy Motorola mobile

Namaste, Moto! Indian TV Guy Wants Your Handset Business - GigaOM

Happy Thursday

I love this site: Savage Chickens: Drink Beer Cartoon

Saving Indian Techies

I got this email from my friend which is lately making rounds in IT-enabled inboxes (is that a word?). I think it paints a fair picture of "the situation on the ground". I'm talking about what is going on in that Indian IT guy's/gal's mind when they are not working. Let's walk-through.

Link

"Real Estate price hike is known open robbery from IT guys by brokers / whoever it is and it's not only Flats / Real Estate, IT guys undergo open robbery from all rich shop owners / a person who wanted to become rich as fast as possible...

The salary whatever we get, it's our hard-earned money, most of the times sitting in the night, away from family functions, friends, etc...but all our money or most of the money are going to someone who just takes advantage of our stressful life (both mentally and physically) and our new western life style. "


Very true. There is no doubt that selfish non-IT individuals systematically swindle money from the highly paid IT workers. There is no ground for any increase in expenses and over-charges. The mail points to some instances where there is a price increase for no apparent reason.

"Chicken Biriyani (3 weeks back) - Rs. 65
Today (same Chicken Biriyani) - Rs. 78

Pop Corn (Sathyam Complex) (month and half back) - Rs. 20
Today (almost the same quantity) - Rs. 30

Corn in Garuda Mall (month back) - Rs 20 Small, Rs 30 Medium and Rs 40 High
Now, "real" small has become Rs 35 now and Rs 45 for high...

The moment you say that you are from Software company, the price automatically increases..."

Real Estate

The real estate market is filled with greedy people. With almost no government regulated prices, the sellers and builders quote any price they wish. If a house is quoted at $60,000 and some retard starts a rumor - "there is a new software park coming up next week" - the quote changes to $100,000 immediately. No questions asked.

Almost all the techies get housing loans of $30,000 to $100,000 at alarming rate of 10% or more for 20+ years. By any stretch, $30,000 is a LOT of money if the salary is earned in Indian Rupees. Even with significant increase in salaries, after paying off the mortgage, monthly expenses, groceries, etc, etc they will end up with nothing or fall short. This is of course assuming both the husband and wife work. If the wife is a home-maker, sorry.

I have no idea who sets the real estate prices. Is there any regulatory body? It's just people making up their own estimates. Where is the f*ing government?

Now, what about the average, below average and poor population which is the majority?

That is the most disturbing impact. Families with average and below-average salaries are caught in this spike. Top earning techies are struggling to cope up with increased day-to-day spending. I can't imagine what the average income families are going through.