India Adds 9 Million Mobile Users in July

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian mobile telecoms firms added 9.2 million users in July, taking subscribers in the world's fastest growing wireless market to nearly 300 million, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said on Monday.

Leading mobile firm Bharti Airtel signed up 2.7 million customers, enough for it to overtake state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd as India's largest telecom firm by total subscribers, including fixed-line subscribers.

Second-ranked mobile firm Reliance Communications added 1.75 million customers, and No. 3 Vodafone Essar, controlled by Britain's Vodafone Plc , added 1.76 million.

India is the world's fastest-growing market for wireless services and the second-largest market for such services after China, with growth fuelled by cheap handsets and call rates as low as 1 U.S. cent a minute.

The regulator's data showed Indian wireless phone users rose to 296.1 million in July, while fixed-line line subscriptions fell by around 160,000 to 38.8 million.

India Adds 9 Million Mobile Users in July - NYTimes.com

Call Cutta interactive theater

Talk with an Indian call center worker as part of a theater/performance art project. You visit the project by appointment where you get immersed in a faux call center environment. Call Cutta In A Box review, Call Cutta In A Box project page, Call Cutta blog.

"Call Cutta In A Box is a strange interactive theater installation where the audience, one at a time, converses with an employee of an Indian call center. Indeed, the production was created by art group Rimini Protokoll in collaboration with the Callcenter Descon Limited in Calcutta. The installation is currently on tour, traveling next to Gronigen, Copenhagen, and Paris."

Call Cutta interactive theater - Boing Boing

Social class and murders in India

Here's an interesting article about class in India. In the "twin Noida murders" in New Delhi, a Nepali servant was immediately the suspect in the death of a well-to-do teenager. The servant was later discovered dead as well. The police then accused the father, allegedly because he was having an affair with a co-worker that was found out by his daughter and then the servant. The police have since let him go due to lack of evidence. Technology has played a role in this case:

Talwar was allegedly having an affair with a co-worker, the media reported. His daughter, 14, was said to have found out — police discovered that 50 calls had been placed to the co-worker from her cellphone. There was also speculation that Hemraj had discovered the affair.

But police now say there's no evidence against Talwar — he's been freed. And the attention paid to Aarushi's death — candlelight ceremonies and Facebook pages — has become cause for question, too.

Wrote Udayvir Singh Yadav wrote on an online youth publication called the Viewspaper: "Hemraj's murder seems so insignificant even though it is part of the same case. No one did a candlelight vigil. No one cared to go meet his family. Do we not care about him? We just presented a perfect model of the rich-poor divide."

India murders amplify social division | Seattle Times Newspaper

The Richest Man in India

Mukesh Ambani (older brother of Anil Ambani who controls Reliance telecomm) is an exemplar of the Indian middle class. This New York Times story describes him as a man with Indian tastes and values, in contrast with other elite business families in India.

Such changes accompanied the rise to power of a new class of Indians who want to live and work and raise their children in India, who are tethered to Indian values, food and popular culture and who are unapologetic about their indigenous tastes. The Ambanis are this class’s first family.

MANY other Indian business families have been rich for generations, and their scions don finely cut suits and flaunt fussy tastes. Ratan Tata cruises down Marine Drive on Sundays in fast cars and favors Hermès ties with matching handkerchiefs. Vijay Mallya is said to be trailed in his home by a butler holding a silver tray with a cigar and a Scotch. Adi and Parmeshwar Godrej are famous for soirées that attract Hollywood stars.

Mr. Ambani comports himself quite differently. Among family members, he prefers speaking Gujarati to English, friends say. He may ask colleagues to stop at the temple with him during business trips to partake in a ritual Hindu prayer. He loathes Western suits, preferring a white short-sleeved shirt, black trousers and black shoes that resemble sneakers cross-bred with office wingtips.

His idea of entertainment is not ballet but Bollywood; he watches as many as three films a week at home in a private theater. “You need some amount of escapism in life,” he says. “Those two or three hours give you relief.”

He has a legendary appetite, but mostly for the food of the bustling Mumbai streets. He has been known to walk out of fancy restaurants in search of dosas, south Indian crepes sold by the roadside. And he carries those preferences with him when he travels.

Meet Mukesh Ambani - India’s Richest Man - Biography - NYTimes.com

Valentine's Day news roundup

Lots of good news articles about LUV this time of the year.

Time, January 28, 2008, is devoted to the Science of Romance. Several good articles including Why We Love (biological reasons for romance), We Just Clicked (online dating), Crazy Love (being in love with someone with mental issues), and Wildly in Love (pictures of romantic animals).

The Dating Detectives -- verifying claims on Indian matrimonial sites.

Widows are still shunned in India

Shunned from society, widows flock to city to die. Whatever the cultural reasons for the abandonment and shunning of widows, I still find it a disturbing practice. It's not clear how widespread this custom is, or whether it is restricted to certain segments of society.

See also Deepa Mehta's movie Water for an artistic treatment of the subject.

Dabbawalla = Fed Ex for food?

A great NYTimes article about the dabbawallas of Mumbai who zip around the cities delivering hot, home-cooked lunches to hungry workers. A favorite quote of mine:

"There is a service called FedEx that is similar to ours--but they don't deliver lunch," said one dabbawalla, Dhondu Kondaji Chowdhury.

In India, Grandma Cooks, They Deliver

Elizabeth Hurley's Indian Wedding

Local reactions to the Elizabeth Hurley and Arun Nayar wedding this week in Jodhpur.

"Is it this old woman who's getting married?" asked Kastury Ghosh, a bridal shop manager in the west Indian city of Jodhpur, as she peered over her glasses at a picture of Elizabeth Hurley.

...

But even if India is only just getting to know Hurley, she may endear herself with locals who understand the need for lavish, attention-grabbing wedding celebrations.

Marriage remains a fundamental rite of passage and symbol of a family's status in India. Even the humblest family will save up to make sure their children are paraded regally around the neighborhood by lantern-bearers and a brass band.

In India's fiercely hierarchical society, most people are expected to marry a partner from the same background, caste and religion, so Nayar's marriage to a white, non-Indian and non-Hindu woman has also attracted curious comment.

"An Anglo-Indian wedding has never happened here before," said Durgsingh Rathort, another bridal shop worker.

But no one thought to criticize the arrangement - in India, the rich can make their own rules.

"Liz who?" ask locals in Indian city

Mobile phones and romance

Ah, Valentine's Day. My favorite holiday research-wise because stories about romance pop up everywhere.

1) Valentine's Day wins Indian hearts

India's largest chain of card shops, Archie's, is producing more than 300 different types of Valentine's Day cards this year.

Some of them come with detachable love hearts which can then be used as mobile telephone accessories. There is also money to be made from people who do not have a sweetheart but want one. Internet dating sites have grown in popularity in India.

One of the most successful, Fropper.com has two million members and says February is the most popular month in which to join.

2) India: political, religious hardliner groups protest Valentine's Day (thanks to Jonathan for these two links)

3) and here's a potentially interesting story, except it's published in The Conservative Voice, which suggests there might be a political agenda. But it has a mobile phone angle, so I can't resist: Extremist Muslims Vs. Valentines, Except Rebels

Kuwait: "Tactics are evolving. In this oil-rich state, young Arabs buy two cell phones, and as they see the beloved driving by, they throw one of the mobiles in her car; then the telephonic romance can begin."

I don't know how to verify this tidbit, but it's such a good story.

4) and forbidden love via mobile! Romance nipped on train
This is an excellent story about two kids who become connected because of the mobile phone. The boy was randomly dialing numbers and reached her. They nurtured their romance by mobile, and then by landline, before they tried to meet in person, and were thwarted.

Laltu came to know his beloved by chance. He was dialling numbers at random from his new cellphone when she said hello. Long conversations and endless SMSes followed. The bills were long, too, and the phones were confiscated. But that only made the young lovers use landlines, instead.

Coming out of the closet in India

A great article was in the newspaper today profiling the prince of Rajpipla coming out of the closet. His parents the maharaja and maharani were not happy about and disowned him. He is also publicly reviled. The article details his discovery and exploration of his homosexuality even when he did not have the words to describe it (because they don't talk about it in India). He was married at age 25 to a princess of Madhya Pradesh but it ended in divorce when he could not consummate the marriage. A stir in India after prince comes out

Homosexuality is very much closeted in India, just like other forms of deviant carnal behavior. (see my previous post about the subject.) For a great piece about Indian gay culture both domestically and in the diaspora, read Sandip Roy's chapter in Mobile Cultures. The chapter has descriptions about the perception of gay culture in India. Providing support for homosexuality as something forbidden and not talked about is that there are no native words equivalent to "gay." The word khush which literally means "happy" has been adopted to be an equivalent word for "gay." With the internet, gays can make their first tentative explorations of their sexuality without revealing themselves and risking public shame.

Roy, S. (2003). From Khush List to Gay Bombay: Virtual Webs of Real People. In C. Berry, F. Martin, and A. Yue (Eds.), Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia (pp. ?). Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Mobile companies looking for love in India

Several companies are trying to win the affections of Hutch in India. I like how the deals are couched in romantic terms in the headline! The article says Hutch is attractive because it's in an emerging market.

Telecommunications companies are looking to fast-growing emerging markets as their operations in traditional markets have stagnated. Less than 10 percent of the 1.1 billion people in India have a mobile phone, according to a Gartner Group study, compared with more than 70 percent in the United States, but new users are growing at record rates. According to the Telecom Regulators Authority of India, India had 6.79 million new mobile subscribers in November.

In contrast, some surveys say that in some areas in Europe and Asia, including the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Sweden, there is already more than one mobile phone subscription for each person.

Suitors Woo Mobile Phone Company in India

Economist round up

Some recent articles about the mobile phone sector in the developing world. The India article talks about how mobiles are mainstreaming poor people into the economy. For now, the Indian mobile sector is focusing on cheap basic services rather than the latest and greatest in sexy 3G services. The Africa article talks about how regional providers are jockeying to be tops in their markets.

Talk is cheap, India leads the world in mobile-phone subscriber growth, Dec 7th 2006, From The Economist print edition

WITH 6.6m new subscribers a month, India is in the grip of an unprecedented mobile-phone boom. Figures released in September showed that India had overtaken China in new subscribers per month for the first time. India still lags behind China in total subscribers, with a mere 136m (up from 75m a year ago), compared with China's 449m. But India's government is confident that this gap can be quickly closed, and that it will meet its target of 500m phone subscribers by 2010.

The boom has become the source of much national pride. It is arguably a more widely celebrated example of the “New India” than the high-tech offshoring industry centred on Bangalore, because poorer Indians are participating in it too. Industry bosses are quick to point out that the spread of mobile phones is bringing labourers, farmers and fishermen into the economic mainstream. 'An unemployed person with a phone suddenly feels part of the nation,' says one top executive.

Out of Africa, A new kind of telecoms operator is evolving in Africa and the Middle East, Dec 7th 2006, From The Economist print edition

THAT mobile phones are transforming economic and social life in Africa is now widely understood. Less well known are the companies that are leading the charge. Following a flurry of deals over the past 18 months, five African and Middle Eastern operators are now vying for supremacy. These regional powerhouses have worked out how to earn princely sums in the world's poorest places. So far they have mostly been too busy signing up new subscribers to compete vigorously with each other. But that is now starting to change, and the industry is preparing for a round of consolidation as the operators start to attack each other's markets.

The five big operators are MTN of South Africa, MTC of Kuwait, Egypt's Orascom, Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Vodacom, an Anglo-South African firm. John Tiefel, a partner at McKinsey, predicts that consolidation will result in three or four large operators spanning Africa and the Middle East, with a sprinkling of national firms. “All the operators have a very similar vision: to become meaningful players in all these markets,” says Phuthuma Nhleko, the boss of MTN Group in South Africa, which has operations in 21 countries across the region.

Links via Irini