Indicast Podcast Network - Mother Feed

It's so confusing when seriousness is dealt with song and dance. Wish the film was advertised as modern Ram Leela performed in a tribal theater. That expectation would have prepped me to deal with the over-dramatization a lot better. We also briefly touched upon a very well made- Jhing Chik Jhing. It defintely is a worth a watch, preferably in the theaters to support the producers who have made an honest and decent effort.

Its been quiet a week in the technology world with a mix of product announcements - Apple iPhone 4, India's 3G auction completion, Google sniffing its into trouble, and Hotmail releasing a new feature for India to enable access hotmail via SMS. Need less to say that Apple iPhone 4 stole the limelight this week. Saket is impressed by the display and I like the front facing camera for FaceTime. We also talk about iPhone coming to India. Things are a bit hazy and we discuss the expected pricing.

Recently, India's Internet had its own Epic moment when Hidden Reflex, a Bangalore based software startup, has launched a browser targeted at Indian audiences. Saket downloaded it and gave it a quick test drive and shares his experiences. The other stories include muslims planning to quit facebook, Apple iPhone 4 rejected by Consumer Reports, XXX to be a TLD, and Maharashtras DTE website turns into rubbish.

In this episode, we review Group E consisting of Netherlands, Denmark, Cameroon, and Japan. Jan Roskott joins us as a special guest and long with Vikram, our resident contributor. Jan is the chief blogger at the NEtherlands World Cup Blog. He was also fortunate to be present behind the nets when Netherlands won the Euro 88. While Netherlands seems to be favourite to move on from this group, but the second spot is still up for grabs with Cameroon, Denmark and Japan vying for it.

Abhijit Dasgupta, the Deputy Editor of India Today Magazine was kind enough to join us on a Skype call from the beautiful city of Kolkata which is lately the cynosure of all Indian political news. Mamata Banerjee helped get WB on the front pages by winning the civic polls and two days before her landslide victory she made some rather controversial remarks about the Gyaneshwari Express train derailment. Abhijit, very eloquently talks about his experience of interviewing and covering the colourful politician over his career which spans over more than three decades. In other news, the missing black box from the Air India crash site has been retrieved. Chand Kumar Prasad, a 24 year old employed with the Indian Navy has been accused of spying. The heat wave in the north has reached new levels!

In this episode, we review Group B consisting of Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, and Greece. Nani calls this group of indiscipline. All teams, ecept South Korea are still figuring out their match strategies, including Argentina. Argentina is having problems with selecting their final 11, Nigeria's got a new coach just a week back and Greece has never won a world cup match. The group could see South Korea causing some havoc once again.

In this episode, we review Group A consisting of South Africa, Argentia, Mexico and Uruguay. But even before getting into the podcast with the group discussion, guess how was the Soccer City Stadium inaugrated? to say the least, it was a bit different. Group A is very close to being the Group of Death and Nani tells us why.

It's that time again. The World's most popular sport will see which country is the world's best. The Football (not soccer) World Cup 2010 is all set to kick off in 3 weeks. Indicast intends to bring you a special series covering all things Football World Cup 2010 in South Africa. We will not only with doing a weekly review of the matches once the World Cup starts but will also be bringing you a round up of all teams participating group by group. In the first Sports Bench Podcast - Football World Cup 2010 edition, we decided to keep the discussion around the history of World Cup and overview about the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Vikram Nanivadekar and Adwait Patil, the resident football enthusiasts join the discussion.

The episode starts on a very sombre note with discussions around the Mangalore Air crash however the topics get a bit cheerful after that. On the occassion of completing one year of UPA II, the Indian PM Manmohan Singh decided to sit face to face with the press and provide an update about the work done. the other topics on this episode include, an All India bengali team conquering Mt Everest, Dawood 3rd on the Forbes Most Wanted List, and the 99 year old half marathon runner.

It was the 150th Birth Anniversay of India's, for that matter - Asia', first Nobel Laureat. We start with remembering and talking about Rabindranath Tagore and a few side stories about his Life. We then digress to general opinions about Bengalis (hardly a surprise). The other topics include Jayram Ramesh getting pulled up by Manmohan Singh for mouthing off, Anand's winning streak, Nithari killer getting death sentence, and the death of tongas in Delhi.

In this podcast, Rajdeep Sardesai takes us back to his school days and talks passionately about his cricket, table tennis and quizzing before drifting into journalism after studying Law at Oxford University. His dad, Dilip Sardesai, comes to life in the conversation when Rajdeep talks fondly about the values that he grew up on. Rajdeep started his career at a time when Television was yet to make its debut and in his words, Journalism was not as glamourous as it is today. There was a lot of drudgery involved. Rajdeep reasons out why the quality of modern journalism has been in decadence. Yet he is hopeful that this only presents an opportunity for some interesting stories to be told. He believes that news channels will soon be judged on their credibility and integrity and not on how much noise they can make. He also uses strong words against the Quick Fix journalism that Indian media indulges in under the veil of investigative journalism. Like an experienced test match opening batsman, Rajdeep Sardesai plays

In this episode, I have two TV Tech Show hosts - Sudhir Sayal of ET NOW and Aalaap Ghag, formerly of UTVs Techtree. We talk about Microsoft buying Skype - one of the most high profile acquisition in recent times. Microsof has received a lot of bashing in the press for the sort of money they spent to buy skype but here is the TKM panels take on it. Also, after discussing about the huge VC investments in the US, Indian enterpreneurs are finally seeing their share. There are no prizes that eCommerce is the focus area for VCs but is it too concentrated in one segment remains to be seen.

Terrorist Ajmal Kasab has been given the death sentence. Ujjwal Nikam, the public procecutor deserves a special mention. INS Shivalik marks a historic breakthrough in the history of Indian navy by becoming india's first stealth warship which is non detectable in high seas. Manmohan Singh and Sachin Tendulkar among many others find their name in TIME magazine's annual list of achievers. The Delhi University gave itself a bad name this week when it sold radioactive material to a scrap dealer!

The IPL ended and so did Modi's regime. Chirayu Amin has been brought in as the interim chief of IPL. The Glocodyn man is thinking of doing away with Cheergirls and IPL nights and focus on cricket. (Modi is laughing somewhere). The other taopics include the 364 passenger having a near death experience and India's very own matahari.

We recorded this episode a day before Modi was suspended. This podcast also talks about how the Mobile service providers in India have found new ways to milk the devotional customers where you could directly connect with God through an SMS. Aditya has some interesting examples. In Jammu and Kashmir, the government almost succeeded in banning the use of bulk SMSs for the fear of spreading rumors which could cause unnecessary panic.

The Indian government is contemplating on giving out direct subsidies to the poor by distributing food coupons which can be exchanged for food items at market prices. Do not hold your breath. The government is only in a contemplation mode, but in this podcast we talk about what are the highlights, advantages and consequences of such a step. The prototype of executing this step is already ready with Sri Lanka which had done this way back in 1979. In the auto industry, Daimler joins Nissan and Renault in an alliance to share technology and reduce cost. In other news, the management thinker, C K Prahlad passed away.

Santosh Ostwal is a maverick engineer who made it possible for the Indian farmer to trigger his irrigation pump with the help of a mobile phone. Do not rub your eyes. You read it right. As an adolescent, Santosh watched his 82 year old grandfather toil hard during the day and then make multiple rounds to the farm with a walking stick in the middle of the night to switch on the electric pump. This entailed facing the grave risk of being mugged or being attacked by snakes and other wild life among a host of other threats. All this to ensure that the crops are well watered. After this incident, Santosh made up his mind to use his engineering knowledge to make a difference for thousands of farmers who lived the same story.

This week was all about Sania Mirza becoming Sania Malik. Aditya gives us a crash course in islamic weddings. We also end up talking a bit about the concept of VOIP marriages which Aditya is strictly against. In some sad news, 76 CRPF jawans were killed by the maoists. Mr. Chidambaram offered to quit, but his resignation was not accepted. We hold ourselves back this time before going on a rant on criticizing the government. You will know why when you listen to the episode.

Ayaz Memon and Minal, join me to talk all things IPL for the 3rd episode at the end of 37 matches of IPL 3. The top of the IPL 3 league standings remains unchanged with Mumbai still on top but Chennai Super Kings has moved up significantly.

It's very rare for abhishek to get excited about any story that we discuss on Indicast with the exception of sachin scoring a century. But Milkha Singh selling his life story to be made into a movie for Re. 1 was something that got him going. He was so impatient that I spent most time figuring out how to get thim talking on other topics like the Kingfisher bomb scare, Mayawati's Maharally, and new teams being introduced in IPL 4.