Atul Karmarkar.Com

Respite for PayPal customers in India

Atul Karmarkar — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:52:14 +0000

Ok, so after all that brouhaha over withdrawal of funds from Indian PayPal accounts, the matter seems to have been resolved for now. PayPal has complied with directives from the RBI on compliance issues regarding settlements for export of goods and services.

From now on, when you want to withdraw funds from your PayPal account, you need to fill in a new field called ‘Purpose Code’, as explained by Farhad Irani on the PayPal blog. This is intended to help the RBI determine the nature of cross border transactions and it is likely that you may need to provide copies of receipts and invoices as and when required.

The Social Media Landscape in 2010

Atul Karmarkar — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:25:33 +0000

Came across this nice sheet at cmo.com that tries to give insights into which social media tools are the best in terms of offering bang for the buck, namely by way of Customer communication, Brand Exposure, getting traffic to your site and of course, SEO.

Of course, this is not a solution in itself, but a good starting point at least. How does your company determine marketing strategy in terms of which social media sites to use?

The Scotch and Soda Clothing Company

Atul Karmarkar — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:37:27 +0000

The Scotch and Soda “Clothing Company” !! I mean, seriously???

The Honda CR-V Smiley :)

Atul Karmarkar — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:03:03 +0000

This Honda CR-V without a spare tyre reminded me of a smiley

Maruti 800 set to drive into the sunset, finally

Atul Karmarkar — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 02:12:27 +0000

One of India’s iconic brands, the Maruti 800, is all set to drive into the sunset as parent Maruti Suzuki said sales of this model would be discontinued from April 2010 across several cities in India. The company made this announcement while saying they had no plans to upgrade this model to Euro IV (Bharat Stage IV) emissions standards.

The model, launched by Maruti in the early ’80s, will bid farewell to Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Kanpur, Ahmedabad, Surat and Agra.

Other cities will follow suit by 2015-16, so this model is still likely to be around for the next five years or so. Frankly, it’s high time the company decided to stop production of the M-800.

There is a limit to how much you can flog a dead horse and though this car will have sentimental value of crores of Indians, sales of this model have been on a steady decline (down 55% in the 10 months ending in January 2010, total sales – 27,088 cars). There are newer and better models on the road now and the consumer is definitely spoiled for choice.

Cars made by Maruti have for long held only a cost advantage, as the inbuilt features and quality of parts were average at best. The company is now facing an assault on its “entry-level carmaker” tag by companies like Tata Motors, which launched the Nano last year.

The Maruti Alto may still be the largest selling car in India, but the Tata Nano is cheaper by almost Rs.2 lakhs, a big deal in a country like India, where owning a car is still considered a luxury.

Bomb blast at German Bakery, Pune

Atul Karmarkar — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:19:27 +0000

After what seemed like a lull before the storm, terror reared its ugly head again with a vengeance, this time in Pune, one of the few big cities in the country to have escaped a terror strike so far.

Around 7.15pm today evening, a powerful bomb ripped apart the age old German Bakery, a very popular eating joint in Koregaon Park, Pune. Initially, everyone thought it was a cooking gas cylinder, but once the enormity of the blast was visible, it was clearly obvious that it was a bomb.

Apparently, a waiter tried to open an unattended bag lying around, which exploded, killing around 8 people and wounding atleast 30-35 more. A TV grab also showed another unattended bag lying in an autorickshaw, though it wasn’t immediately clear if it contained any explosives.

One of the motives for choosing this location seems to be the presence of foreigners, who usually frequent the German Bakery. There is also the famous Osho Ashram nearby and a Jewish prayer house too (Chabad House). US terror suspect David Headley was believed to have stayed at the Ashram a couple of years ago, marking down the area as a possible target.

As of now there are just too many theories floating around, and what is irritating me the most are the comments by our ‘esteemed’ politicians, repeating the same old bullshit again and again, especially the one about having received intelligence reports, but without any specific location! WTF man, do they expect terrorists to hand over a list of their targets on a platter ??

At the moment, there is no complete list of casualties, though I did get an update on Twitter that an employee of JP Morgan, Pune was among the deceased. Will update as more information comes in.

Update: February 14 10.30am: The names of the deceased who have been identified are: Ankit Dhar, Anandi Dhar, T.Sundari, Shankar Pansare, Binita Gadani and Shilpa Goenka.

Update: February 14 7.35pm: The names of the other deceased: Gokul Nepali, Saeed Abdul Ghani, Nadia Materinia.

Update: February 17 3.15pm: The death toll rises… Abhishek Saxena, Aditya Jaiprakash Mehta.

Update: February 21 2.30pm: Two more.. Vikas Tulsiani ( a friend of a friend), and Rajeev Agarwal.

The body count now stands at 15.

Playing with Facebook and Google widgets

Atul Karmarkar — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 03:41:29 +0000

For a long time now, I’ve resisted the temptation to add widgets from Facebook, Mybloglog or Google over here, but now, on an impulse, I’ve decided to give it a go just for the heck of it…

If you are on FB or Google and would like to stay connected to this blog, just add yourselves to the widget(s) in the sidebar. It’s that simple

Google Buzz – have you got it yet?

Atul Karmarkar — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:29:24 +0000

Google seems to be waking up to the threat posed by Facebook and Twitter, where updates, conversations and sharing happens in real time.

Enter Google Buzz, the company’s latest product, now offered in an integrated form with its email application, which allows users to quickly share messages, links and photos with friends and colleagues from within Gmail itself. Google also said they are launching a special mobile application for Buzz.

I was a bit surprised with their choice of name though, and they cannot have forgotten that Yahoo! had a similar product with an identical name some years ago which didn’t really make an impact.

With Google Buzz, each time you post, you can share stuff publicly or with a chosen group of friends, whether on Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, and Twitter, and Buzz sends responses to your posts straight to your inbox, which can then be commented on in real time.

You can follow the specific people whose posts you want to see, but Buzz also recommends posts from people you’re not directly following, often ones where your friends are having a lively conversation in the comments. If you’re not interested in a particular recommendation, just click the “Not interested” link and your feedback will help improve the recommendations system. Here’s a short video explaining the buzz behind Buzz…

This feature is not yet made available to everyone, and Google says they will be doing that over the next few days. Frankly, I’m somewhat sceptical of this whole thing, and I don’t think Google has really cracked this problem related to their social networking presence, whether with Orkut a few years ago, then with Google Wave, or with Google Buzz now. Its like they kinda either keep missing the bus or always play catch up.. :p

I’ve yet to see Google Buzz enabled within my account and will post my reactions to it once I’ve used it. Stay tuned..

Update: Ok, I’ve got the Buzz, and at first glance, I’m not too fond of it. Seems quite chaotic, with the number of people I’m supposed to be following as well as those following me… no to mention the number of updates and replies to those updates. One big concern I have with this is privacy.. just how much of what and where I update stays within my closed group and what gets ‘buzzed’ around to all and sundry…

PayPal nukes users in India

Atul Karmarkar — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:30:25 +0000

The past couple of days has seen a lot of heartburn all over Twitter and the blogosphere with people cribbing about reversal of payments made to their PayPal accounts.

This is affecting only India based users and all payments to and from India are being reversed / suspended. Customers can make payments to India but Indian merchants cannot withdraw funds in INR to local banks.

Here’s what Anuj from the communications team at PayPal had to say about this problem, which admittedly isn’t all that much!

Hope this is resolved quickly as a lot of transactions are now being conducted using PayPal, especially by Indians who are still wary about punching in their credit card details online.

An interview with Ram Charan

Atul Karmarkar — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:31:40 +0000

Not for nothing is Ram Charan referred to by Fortune as the ‘most influential consultant alive’, and it was good to read up on an interview with him by ET’s Corporate Dossier team.

Atul Karmarkar.Com

Respite for PayPal customers in India

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