ndia versus UAE was a predictable enough match. Everyone saw India's victory coming. The point is, the match was not exciting enough. What was exciting and what people were waiting for, was the new 'mauka' ad.

The ad shows our favourite Pakistani cricket fan getting disappointed yet again and getting a West Indies Jersey delivered. The punch was the delivery boy making a jibe at him in the end.

The funny thing, is that this ad campaign has now become more of a mini series, which now has product placement and everything in it too.



Other than that, we can only sit and wait of India to win the next match so that we can see the next 'mauka' ad to get aired.

Says singer Sona Mohapatra, who will perform at the Times Ahmedabad Festival today

Sona Mohapatra who will evening perform at the Times Ahmedabad Festival this at Vastrapur Amphitheatre, opens up about performing in the city, making a style statement and more in a chat with Ahmedabad Times.Excerpts:You've performed in Ahmedabad before. How's the experience been?
Performing in Ahmedabad has been fabulous. My last concert came out to be a big surprise as a huge number of people turned up, which was beyond the expectations of the organisers considering that I am not the conventional mainstream Bollywood artiste and my repertoire hasn't got TV airplay to justify such numbers, or so they might have felt. It was the best gift Ahmedabad could have given me. It made me realize that the youth here are truly connected to music of all kinds and have a deep love for artistes who have a life outside of films.
What does your association with Times Of India and the Times Ahmedabad Festival mean to you?
It is an opportunity to make a cultural impact and play to a genuine music loving audience.I am counting on this to trigger collaborations with local artistes in the city too. Art and aesthetics should be at the top of the mind for the youth to be able to re-energize and evolve their minds and souls. And this is what this association is about. I believe that originality and innovation in all domains would benefit. Just malls and multiplexes cannot be the start and finish to our entertainment and mental stimulation.
Even after a number of Bollywood hits, you continue doing music in other forms including indie albums, collaborations and more.How does it help you as a singer?
Living a life, traveling and meeting people is crucial for an artiste. Every experience informs my work. It helps me pick the stories that I end up telling consistently, be it via music, performance, social media or even the way I dress.While craft, technique and my training as a singer is a definite foundation, the rest of it plays just as important a role in offering some thing special to my audiences. The soul in my singing comes from me engaging with the environment, be it social, political or otherwise.Putting out original music lets me show case my personality and life; one that is not restricted by the context of a film and its characters. It is truly liberating and thankfully my audience gets that.
Although, you've done a variety of work, Ambarsariya is the one which is mostly associated with you. Do you think singers get caught within their most popular songs with their other material taking a backseat?
That might be the case, especially with the media, but if your most popular songs are a reflection of your taste and in complete sync with the rest of your repertoire like Ambarsariya is, it's merely another dot that connects.For the genuine music lover, and there are many in India, my Abhi Nahin Ana is just as loved and requested for in concerts, radio shows and wherever I go .
Is it important to be associated with Bollywood to gain popularity or can you achieve similar feat with your indie endeavors as well?
Today, both aspects of your artistry feed off each other.
Nothing can compare to the challenge, the high, the immediate love and gratifi cation that a live stage pro vides and I live for this.
Having said that, playback is a means to this very end.
Having songs in films helps achieve the biggest reach and more importantly eases out the worries of the show organizers. In a young country like India, there is hardly any infra structure, venues, govern ment or corporate grants to support and encourage live music and culture.
Organizers are able to achieve a better sell-in with sponsors and the logistics of a 10-member team like mine, which eases out if you have reached out to the lowest common denomina tor via films. My repertoire on stage is dominated by my own material and I am fortunate that my film repertoire is also in sync with the same genres, roots music, and folk styles like the thumri ang, mixed with a gypsy spirit. So, it all comes together as a coherent artist voice and not like a schizophrenic suffering from a multiple personality disorder.
You are also one of those few singers, who carry their own fashion style. Is it a conscious effort or does it come naturally?
I see clothes as a means to expressing myself and telling a story just as I would with a song. I also love designs that celebrate local workmanship and textiles. It gives me a high to be showcasing Amdavadi homegrown labels and Gujarati silver jewelry in today's concert as an ode to the city . Dressing up generically is a depressing idea to me. I do not follow trends, will not ape the west, like celebrating my roots, my love for good food and therefore my Indian figure with all its curves!

Before 2013, US-based Peel was known more for its pear-shaped $99 device that allowed smartphones to operate as remote controls for television, until Samsung approached Peel (still a small startup) to develop an interactive and integrated app for its devices.

The app would enhance viewer television experience with an in-built IR blaster, effortlessly merging Peel software and hardware into Samsung devices. The app specialises in “program discovery, TV program interaction, and intelligent home room control.” In just under 30 months, Peel’s new smart universal remote app — as it is known — reached 100 million total users across 87 countries (the app itself works in 200+ countries). The same feat took Facebook four-and-a-half years to accomplish.

This year, by October, Peel reached an average of five billion monthly commands.

To Thiru Arunachalam, CEO and Co-founder of Peel, the success of this app came as an initial surprise. When Samsung first approach his team, Arunachalam saw the proposition as more of a side project. But, the demand for Peel in the US -even India- has been staggering. Already, Peel has more than one million users in India. Quite naturally, Peel is an indelible forerunner in this area; it works with nearly 3,500 brands of television and 600 set-top boxes, including Airtel, Tata Sky, Dish TV, Hathway, DEN and Siti Cable (besides working with air conditioners, too). It features TV listings from WhatsOnIndia for Indian users. With numerous big name investors already in its nifty pocket, Peel recently drew in $50 million worth of strategic investment from Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant devouring every news headline for over a month.

One of the most interesting aspects of Peel is its user engagement. In the 2012 season of American Idol, the app data of the top 12 performances recorded viewers’ cheers and boos to predict which singers would most likely be eliminated from the competition. The same year, it made a disturbingly accurate electoral prevision based on user response to the presidential candidate debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

Recently, Peel launched its Peel.in platform. It allows TV networks to share unique tune-in URLs on social networking sites to promote TV shows. Users who click on these links can tune-in directly through their Peel apps, or set reminders on their phones.

Today, Peel comes preloaded on various Android smartphones and tablets, many of which are already sold in India, like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5 & Xolo Q2100. Soon, Peel will be available on Spice and Celkon phones. The swiftness with which India went from landlines to mobile phones is an indication of how fast Indian consumers are capable of adopting new technologies, allowing apps like Peel to hold ground in India.

The smart universal remote and TV guide/recommendation app is a stepping stone for Indian audiences to slowly move towards streaming, and enjoy ad-free entertainment of their choice at their own convenience.

Now in India, Peel is geared to seriously market its product for Indian viewers.

The East is not a region that can be ignored any more. With world centres fluctuating, the region has become an important decider of what global success really means.

Regarding its entrance into the Indian market, James Ryan, Head of Marketing, says, “We started with Samsung Galaxy 4 and then 5, which are very popular in the US with 30% market share. We’re also on HTC One, but we’re working with Indian distributors, too. We’ve announced a couple of deals like Xolo and Spice. We’ve got three or four other Indian phone manufacturers that we’ve not announced yet, but within the next few months, you’ll be hearing some additional news.”

“Once the app is preloaded on the phone, it’s really a utility that’s very well integrated into the phone functionality.” 

Arunachalam equivocally says, “Even though, I grew up in India, I didn’t really focus on India as a market. For us, the consumer market is huge. However, my initial introduction and attention to India came from Micromax and Lava, because in our business we closely tie with brands; our app is preloaded on devices like HTC, LG. When we were in China, we found out the Indian brands.

“Me and my co-founder were brought up in India. I spent a million hours of watching TV while growing. I love the fact that it helps us relax. I appreciate India, but at the same time, it is a complicated market from different aspects, so I’m still learning,” says Arunachalam.

He has an Apple background, so he comes from a discipline that believes any product should be built in a way that even a child can use it. This philosophy is also what he hopes will help overcome India’s unique challenge: cultural (programming) and linguistic diversity.

“Even though it has text,” says Arunachalam, “the images are what we really bet on. When you see it, you know what it is.”

Because, the remote control and navigation visuals are largely universal, all it takes is visual perception to understand what the app is showing you, then what to do next. This isn’t to say there is no language used, but it significantly reduces the burden of overcoming language barriers. This is precisely why it’s used across 87 countries.

Even Ryan believes there’s no going anywhere without tackling these two issues.

“There’s a huge challenge to provide TV content for all the different regions and languages in India,” says Ryan, “and I think we can’t have success in India unless we do that. I know it’s not perfect yet, but we’re well on the road to having content that meets the needs of everyone in India.”

To be fair, Peel relies on smartphones, and India’s smartphone penetration is only 10% – one of the lowest in the top 30 smartphone markets. However, in 2013, smartphone subscription rate was pegged at ~55%, the fastest in the same market. The International Data Corporation (IDC) expects the 2011-2016 growth rate to average around 57.5% thanks to smartphone prices dropping from a cool $200 to a $50 a pop.

The biggest challenges, though, would be data services themselves. Peel relies on Wi-Fi, and India still has poor infrastructure in this area, besides high-speed connections still being an expensive affair. Providing early-adopted cutting edge technology is hard enough without the hassle of unreliable infrastructure.

“You have to have Wi-Fi or some sort of radio connection like 2G,” says Arunachalam. “But, the remote control will even work without Internet. It downloads everything it needs from the app. As far as content goes – what’s playing on your TV – you can download it for the week, but that’s a challenge. For instance, in China, they don’t allow us to move servers in the US. There are a lot of issues there.”

But, Arunachalam feels India will hopefully move fast in the right direction. It’s only a matter of time before streaming becomes the norm, and Peel wants to be there at the starting line when that happens.

“We’re looking at local streaming players, too. We’re having some very interesting conversations with these guys beyond partnerships – with carriers.”

Lastly, Arunachalam says, “We could actually look at the entire house one day. There’s a lot of excitement around connected homes; we’re starting to explore that in addition to streaming. I don’t know if we’re ready for that or not, but I’ve heard of apartments with these features here. Without knowing the market, I don’t want to speak, though.”

Arunachalam may not be the first to have this idea. The thought of controlling your surroundings and programming with the click of a “button” is an idea that naturally comes to you.

Until then, you can register with Peel.

If I had to analyze why -- despite its ancient culture, knowledge, enterprise and natural resources --  India remains home to more poverty and deprivation than sub-saharan Africa... here's what I'd say:

Infrastructure.

Ugh. What a boring word. Conjures up ads for cement (they're EVERYWHERE in India);  utilitarian bridges, dams and sewer lines; industrial bits that do the unseen work in cities, keeping nasty things flowing away, and clean things in abundance. How many journalists are clamoring to write about the preponderance of underground piping or trash collection mechanisms, when there are far sexier things to reveal:  starving kids, colorful eunuchs, epic graft and Bollywood! 

But the recent US presidential election briefly put a spotlight on infrastructure as a moral issue. If you build it, everyone benefits. Paradoxically, I think it's the issue of equalitywhich ensures that infrastructure remains a luxury in India, despite more than a decade of promises.

See, everyone in India doesn't 'need' infrastructure. The poor and ignorant were born that way and are destined to die that way and no one should really bother, because it's their own karma. Even if you improve their lives, 'it won't do them any good.' 

The worthy folk (upper castes, middle classes, power-hungry politicos, old money, foreigners, etc) can just buy their own personal infrastructure. Need clean water? Install a state-of-the-art reverse osmosis filter in your kitchen. But really, why bother with a functional kitchen at all? It's only the silly maid who'll be using it. Drains blocked? Hire some wretch to clean your shit out by hand from under the manhole in the street.

Want to educate your kids? Pay a private school a suitcase full of cash to reform your runts. Roads? Who cares if they function, it's only the silly driver who will negotiate the potholes, pedestrians and traffic chaos.

India's elite have become all too accustomed to their own cheap personal infrastructure. Servants, they're called, and they are the wretches doomed to plug the comfort gaps for their masters. 

'Oh but otherwise they wouldn't have a job!' say the employers, convinced of their realpolitik. 

And so the merry-go-round of misery swirls on. There's little sign of improvement, so even the poor convince themselves that a kick in the teeth and a penny or two is progress. 

Yet there's simply no escaping that this mentality keeps India in a hopeless, lose-lose situation. 

If you've ever been to Delhi or Mumbai, I'm sure you've noticed how pristine BMW's and Lexus cars drive down streets that look like film sets for civil-war Beirut. Like the photo above (taken just outside my very posh Delhi neighborhood, home to armies of powerful journalists, politicians and administrators), India is a hodge-podge of modern muck, broken streets, ill-equipped public institutions, smelly toilets, wonky buildings; all liberally peppered with idiotically expensive homes and cars. Never mind the everyday, unspeakable police brutality, the numbers of anonymous, homeless dead, nor the millions of children enslaved in beggary or sweatshops. 

Still, half the time, you can just about blur out the lack of infrastructure. So it's stupidly hot, there are no trees, and no building codes requiring insulation? Just fire up the air conditioners!

Water ran out? Ahhh, just jump start the pump and suck more out of the ground. Power failure? No worries, the Krypton-sized back-up battery pack will kick in!

Internet signal as fast and constant as a snail's trail? Hmmm, actually, there's not much you can do about that. Neither can you do much to prevent your kid ending up crammed in with 39 others, even in your posh private school. And worse, you can't anticipate when one of you will come home burning with mosquito-borne dengue fever, or brain worms because the city is literally awash with raw sewage.

The ultimate karmic punch of course is when your fancy car gets smashed to pieces in lawless traffic... and even if the city has an ambulance, it will never reach you in time because of poor roads, girdlock and often, simply because people will stubbornly remain in their spots, refusing to give way. 'Hey, everyone here's got problems!'

I don't believe these failings have anything to do with culture. Indian culture is filled with altruistic, progressive ideas and India is filled with lower, middle and upper class people desperately trying to improve the status quo. Take an Indian out of India, and most likely, he or she will thrive. 

They do have everything to do with a total lack of law enforcement and the fact that an incredibly well entrenched group of morally bankrupt, cowardly, intellectually adolescent men and women run this country's Parliament, legislative assemblies and administration.

Until India strips bare the fantasy that a few grand malls, a few mega-movie stars and a few rich billionaires make for a successful nation, even a world power; until people confront the stinking, ghastly mess outside the few gated communities; and until the powerful make a united moral call to invest in clinics, doctors, schools, teachers, clean water, toilets, nutrition and education, India will remain a disappointment to itself and to the world; a stunted, incapable nation where enterprise is smothered at birth.

Recently, listeners challenged the BBC World Service on its coverage of the Boston marathon bombings. Why, they asked, did the deaths of three people deserve so many hours of coverage, when scores of people die everyday in other parts of the world, unmentioned. 

I can't speak for BBC editors - indeed I'm a long way away from those decision makers. But as someone who has spent many years covering international news stories day to day, I can't deny the fundamental fact that some countries value their citizens' lives more than others. And to an extent, the rest of world including the news media, can only follow suit in reflecting that. 

If charity begins at home, so too does respect...  It's rather obvious that if the United States is willing to invest millions of dollars in safeguarding lives... when the city of Boston can shut down and deploy every last law enforcement officer to hunt for the killers of a child, an immigrant and a woman... then the world is obviously going to take notice too. 

Conversely, when you can't be bothered to protect innocent infants from drinking shitty water; when you don't care if people die in agony of treatable diseases; when you're quite happy to cheat others to make sure you pocket a few extra bucks; when you think a few cell phones will reduce poverty, rather than the availability of a good solid meal, a solid home, and schools for children ... well then, the world will reflect that contempt. 

Yeah, infrastructure is boring, especially when you've got it. 

Media Bureau/Kamna Arora

5:00 pm Modi will host a private dinner for Jinping at the Sabarmati Riverfront Park.

4:55 pm The Chinese premier will visit Mahatma Gandhi's Sabarmati ashram shortly. 

4:31 pm The two countries sign pact to set up an industrial park in Gujarat in the presence of the leaders of the two countries. 

4:27 pm India and China sign a sister city agreement between Ahmedabad and Guangzhou.

4:25 pm The agreements expected to be inked are likely to be on infrastructure, railways and a sister city agreement between Ahmedabad and China's Guangdong province.

4:20 pm Modi and Xi will shortly sign the several key agreements between the two countries.

4:02 pm: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping begin talks.

3:45 pm: The two heads of state pose for cameras. 

3:44 pm: Prime Minister Narendra Modi hands over bouquet of flowers to the Chinese President and the First Lady of China. 

3:40 pm: Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in the hotel. Prime Minister Narendra Modi received him.

3:39 pm: The Prime Minister can be seen outside the hotel, waiting for the Chinese leader. 

3:13 pm: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reached Hotel Hyatt in Ahmedabad.

3:12 pm: On the road from the airport to the hotel in Vastrapur area, welcome hoardings in Mandarin, English and Gujarati can be seen.

3:10 pm: The Prime Minister's cavalcade is, meanwhile, on its way to Hotel Hyatt, where he will receive Chinese President Xi Jinping. 

3:07 pm: A guard of honour is being presented to Xi. ​

3:05 pm: A troupe from the tribal belt of Gujarat presented a folk dance with traditional costumes and a Scottish Pipe Band from Shree Swaminarayan Gadi Sansthan, Maninagar, Ahmedabad also performed.

3:04 pm: Traditional "chaniya choli" wearing Gujarati women put a kesar-kumkum tilak and offered rice and flowers to Xi.

3:03 pm: Airport sources told a news agency that Xi flew into Ahmedabad in a Boeing 747 aircraft of Air China. 

3:02 pm: Chinese President Xi Jinping, along with his wife Peng Liyuan, 51, a well accomplished folk-singer and a household name in China, are being received by Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel and state Governor OP Kohli. Due to the warm and sunny weather, attractive and decorated umbrellas were held over the first couple of China.

2:51 pm: After signing defence and maritime security cooperation deal with Colombo, Xi Jinping is expected to ink a number of agreements with the Indian PM during his three-day visit.

2:46 pm: Ahmedabad, the commercial capital of Gujarat state, has decked up to receive the Chinese leader. 

2:45 pm: This is the first time a foreign dignitary is starting his visit from outside the national capital.

2:43 pm: A red carpet welcome and Gujarati culture and cuisine await the Chinese President during his six-hour visit to the state.

2:40 pm: The much-awaited three-day visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping begins as his plane has landed in Ahmedabad. His plane is delayed by 20 minutes. Breaking the protocol, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would personally receive the Chinese President.

Model Meghna Patel goes nude for Narendra Modi and appeals the people to vote for BJP’s leader in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections of 2014. Is this what we Indians have come to be? 

We have heard of actors turning into politicians, we have heard about models claiming to shed their clothes for acricket victory by team India, but have we ever heard of a model going nude only to attract voters to vote for a particular politician? Yes! You heard that right!

After the news of Poonam Pandey claiming to go nude after team India’sWorld Cup victory, it’s the ‘Kahaani Chandrakanta Ki’ model Meghna Patel, who is making headlines along the same line.

Meghna Patel has bared it all (err… almost) for the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Mr. Narendra Modi.

Shedding all her awkwardness (well, she looks confident in the photograph), Meghna was seen posing for the photograph and covering her modesty with a placard saying ‘Vote For Modi’. While some reports now suggest that the model was clothed during the photo shoot, the photos and the intentions give different ideas to us.

The photographs have gone viral and have received a lot of ‘hush-hush’ negative criticism – especially from the members of the party. Apparently the incident has embarrassed the BJP, especially the Maharashtra state BJP.

Is this a publicity stunt on the part of the model, or the party? Well, the answer for this question is undetermined, but both could either of the entities could be behind this.

Meghna Patel was last seen in ‘Kahaani Chandrakanta Ki’ – a television series that aired on Sahara One TV channel and ended on March 23, 2012 (that is almost two years ago). This act can be a possible reason by the model to get an opportunity in the glamour industry, or perhaps be, in her thoughts, a shortcut to fame. The glamour industry is dynamic and follows a simple rule: ‘any publicity is good publicity’?

However, ‘any publicity is good publicity’ can now apply to politics as well, right? Of course, people wouldn’t want to see their leaders in such light, so we can also put the opposition party behind such acts.

It is very common for one party to bad-mouth the other, or see the Members of Parliament throwing chairs, stationery or pushing each other in an on-going assembly and what not! It’s not hidden that the BJP has many rival parties, with Congress being the primary one.

At the end of the day, it is evident that this was a publicity stunt, irrespective of the motive or the person/the party behind it.

Having said that, is this what we have come to be? If Meghna did this at her own discretion, why would someone shed all their clothes to appeal for vote bank or gain 5 minutes of fame? If BJP did this, then WHY? And if an opposition or a rival party did this, WHY IN THE WORLD, again?

Should we really fall to such levels of indecency? The modern era and everything aside… India is known for something significant – its culture. The culture that stresses on being nice, on being polite, on being humble, on being grounded, on being decent. We are not against people wearing short clothes and the likes, and being expressive, but public nudity is downright offensive and atrocious.

Should we be so indecent or offensive? Should we do things like this for 5 minutes of fame?