I don’t particularly care of Bollywood or Hollywood stars other than watching the occasional movie on the back of an airplane seat, but I have been a regular reader and fan of director Shekhar Kapur’s blog (read it here). I discovered it relatively recently, when both of us happened to be on a panel about Indian media at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management earlier this year. What was interesting about the blog was that unlike what I heard of most celebrity blogs, this one is rarely about him and more often about interesting geopolitical and cultural issues, ranging from Bihar floods and Georgia wars, to whether India is heading to a Civil War and his experience with Heath Ledger. (Full disclosure–he also posted this essay I wrote for Mint’s weekend magazine Lounge on coming back to live in India after 18 years on his blog).

So, I was a bit surprised then to see a recent post by Shekhar that was headlined Mumbai Mirror’s completely irresponsible article on mine and Suchitra’s divorce and began with: “I have never spoken about my divorce publicly before. It is a painful process not only for the two people involved but also for the young children. Both Suchitra and I spent nine very painful and turmoil driven years in a marriage” (read it here). Essentially it was a way for Shekhar to reach out to his fans and, try and correct what he considered as serious falsehoods in a newspaper (published in Mumbai by the owners of Times of India) about his personal life and provide his own perspective on the events.

I don’t know about you, but in a country where getting most newspapers to admit to mistakes–even serious, factual errors–is much like tilting against windmills, I am glad that the growth of blogs and the spreading of the Internet is opening more channels of communication that go around and beyond traditional gatekeepers. Without getting into fact vs fiction in this specific case (after all only Shekhar and Suchitra know all the facts and she is indeed quoted in the Mumbai Mirror article), as an editor, I am glad this is happening even if the reach of such blogs remains limited for now. In case you are wondering about Mint’s own policy on correcting errors, you can check out our clearly stated Corrections & Clarifications policy on Page 2 of the paper every day as well as in our Journalistic Code of Conduct on the top right of our website’s home page here.

Meanwhile, curious to see if other Indian celebrities–especially those who love and hate media when it suits them–are also using their celebrity blogs for such end-runs, I went over to Amitabh Bachchan’s somewhat larger-than-life BIGblog (see it here.) While much of it is rather mundane and all too personal–somewhat fuzzy pictures from his new 3G iPhone (a gift from friend and chauffeur CJ in case the tax department is keeping an eye on Big B’s spending!) of the Eiffel Tower, and a case of swollen eye one morning, Bachchan is clearly making canny use of his blog to both pressure and mock media.

In a hilarious posting on his email interview with Hindustan Times Kolkata reporter Diganta Guha, Bachchan threatens to publish the interview on his blog if it doesn’t appear asap in the paper, prefacing his answers with this: “I am making you aware that I shall expect that the responses are printed in exactly the way they have been written. I shall also expect them to appear in print asap. Else they will be finding their way to my blog, which could be unhealthy for the exclusivity of the material. I may add that ethically I shall wait. But not for long.”

Also, don’t miss Questions 7 and 10 that clearly rankle the 66-year-old superstar as well as the somewhat prophetic exchange he has with Vishal, a music director for the recently concluded The Unforgettable Tour by the Bachchan clan. What really struck me was how the blog has opened up quite the window into how reporters ask questions of celebrities and the kinds of answers they get, giving the rest of us a real ringside view of the circus that seems to unfold. (Read that full posting here). It is again a welcome development if you ask me, putting a spotlight on how reporters operate and celebrates operate. Also interesting to me is how the story was eventually written in Hindustan Times leading a reader to believe it was a face-to-face chat (read it here), what with this kind of introduction to the Q&A: “Amitabh Bachchan at 66 is still a bundle of energy. And that’s what we found out when we caught up with him on his forthcoming film The Last Lear, directed by Rituparno Ghosh and the Unforgettable Tour.”

Finally, there is Aamir Khan who seems to straddle the world of fame and “I don’t really care for fame” worlds in Bollywood. While he isn’t as regular as either Shekhar or Bachchan with his posts, the blog has also given him an opportunity to also get his views across, as he did quite well on the controversy of whether actors such as himself should run with the 2008 Beijing Olympics torch or boycott it over Tibet. (Read it here)

I am not a huge fan of citizen journalism in newspapers, especially in business newspapers because it is prone to a lot of misuse and fiction. But it is heartening to see that technology is allowing people to reach other people directly without having the filter of newspaper editors and reporters. Separating fact and fiction will be even harder I suppose in such direct communication, but it tells me the role that media can hope to play in a digital world–if we get our act together–of being a trusted intermediary and a valued filter. Meanwhile, you only have to read some of the comments (5,567 for Aamir’s post, 492 for Bachchan’s post and 37 for Shekhar’s post) from readers on these blogs to realize how the Indian media’s inability–and reluctance–to fully embrace fairness and facts is only undermining our credibility and our future.

I didn’t know this until now but, for nearly 10 years, the Paris Metro train system has had its own smell–thanks to Madeline, a scent based on lemons, oranges and lavender. Every month, about 1.5 tons of Madeline are mixed into cleaning fluids and spread on station floors every month.

A recent train trip from New Delhi to Haridwar–my first on an Indian train in little over 20 years–had me thinking about this (no points for guessing why!) and then I happened to read that Berlin’s S-Bahn, which apparently smells of “stale air, cheap pizza and wet clothes” is planning a special train scent that will be rolled out in some 100 of the 600 commuter trains that run each day, come November. Unlike somewhat more feminine Parisian train smell, Berlin has opted for something that smells of “eucalyptus with a touch of citrus, jasmine and underlying patchouli notes.” Read full story here.

So, given all the branding and modernization the Indian Railways have been up to under Lallu Prasad Yadav, I think I smell yet another Harvard Business School case study opportunity here. Please, I can sense what you are thinking right now. But, do try not going down the scatalogical route (though if you haven’t, I highly recommend reading K.P. Narayana Kumar’s seriously funny story that was on the front page of Mint’s debut issue here) about the mess the Railways finds itself in on this front!

Anyway, what do you think should be the scent of the Indian Railways?

There aren’t that many Indian wine drinkers–snobs or connoisseurs alike–who don’t have an opinion on Indian’s young wine brands–Grover, Indage, Sula et al. But, leaving aside the limitations of climate and non-availability of certain kinds of grapes, can Indian vineyards ever hope to turn their bottles into brands that come to stand for India, much like some wine labels have done for Australia, Chile or South Africa?

While there are scores of wine reviews in Indian media, panning or loving India’s wines, two recent attempts looking at Indian wines both asked–and answered–this larger question of Whither Indian Wines?

Melissa A Bell and Seema Chowdhry of Lounge, the weekend magazine of Mint, recently asked three experts to try four new brands of Indian wines. You can read what they sipped, spit and said here. What was more interesting to me is what the experts had to say about how Indian wines can compete globally. One suggestion: Be Indian.

“Indian winemakers want to copy what happens in France or other parts of the world. The key should be that instead of using all that money to make wine that is not Indian, use it to find out how they can make a wine that is Indian, that has its own identity. Why replicate tastes that are already out there? Concentrate on what is Indian. Meanwhile, a few innovative Indian wines have not changed in 25 years: Indage still makes its one Chantilly. Grover only makes one thing that is good, but it’s not consistent. Sula still hides behind sugar with every wine. All three experts believe that Indian winemakers need to experiment and that it’s (all about) trial and error, and the industry is still young.”

This week, wine critic Gary Vaynerchuk, who famously (rashly?) predicted India will make a big splash on the world wine scene in the next decade, brought his nose and mouth to three Indian wines to try and see if one or more of them has a shot at doing just that. He tasted the 2007 Tiger Hill Sauvignon Blanc, the 2006 Sula Dindori Reserve Shiraz, and the Chateau d’Ori Cabernet Syrah 2007. Gary, for those of you who haven’t run into his reviews, is an over-the-top and down-to-earth wine critic so, if you are a fan (or not) of Indian wines, you are in for a surprise I suspect. See Gary’s Mumbai rooftop video review of the three wines and his unexpected conclusions at tv.winelibrary.com here.

So, what do you think? Based on what you have drunk so far, do you see a wine brand that will, much like Infosys, Oberoi resorts or Kingfisher beer, come to stand for India outside India? As for me, I am more of a Single Malt kind of a guy and there, I know for sure, India and its great fascination for blended scotches stands not a chance.

Two recent news items about state of India’s prisons and prisoners raise some interesting policy and investment questions.

Evidence 1: The Press Trust of India reported on 5 September (read full story here) that India’s prisons are way past bursting at the seams, with some 373,000 prisoners stuffed into the country’s 1,336 prisons that have a combined maximum capacity of only about 269,000 inmates. The National Crime Records Bureau, which reported this data for 2006, notes that India’s prison capacity utilisation, at 141.1%, was, however, falling and down from 145.4%. Small comfort I suppose to an inmate in, say, Delhi’s jails, which housed 214% more inmates than the prisons were supposed to hold. India’s Home Ministry points out that overcrowding, by comparison is around 12.2% in the UK and 7.9% in the US. What is interesting is that while Delhi (13,400 inmates against capacity of 6,250), Gujarat (11,793 prisoners against capacity of 5,700) and Chhattisgarh (10,359 prisoners against capacity of 5,299), are overflowing, the occupancy rate (makes it feel like a hotel, doesn’t it?!) in six states and four union territories is well below capacity as seen in West Bengal (92.2% occupancy), Rajasthan (79.7%), Jammu and Kashmir (73.2%), Mizoram (68.9%) and Nagaland (55.2%).

Evidence 2: The Times of India reported on 1 September (read full story here) that the Indian Home Ministry, which has already spent Rs 1,800 crore since 2002-03 is planning to spend another Rs 5,300 in the next five years to add capacity and “modernize” prisons in 27 Indian states. (About Rs4.5 crore=$1 million).

“Gone are the days when jails were considered dark dungeons and prisoners forgotten after being locked up. The government is now looking for global consultancy majors to judge how India treats its over 3.58 lakh prisoners,” wrote the Times reporter in the lede. I am not so sure about the dungeons and barbaric nature bit of Indian–or any other–prisons though. You might want to Read Colin Gonsalves on the Rot in India’s Prisons where he notes: “Applying even the most retrogressive standards, Indian prisoners are the pits — a level of perversity matched only by our pious, moralistic and sanctimonious preachings abroad. In the land of Gandhi and non-violence, prisons remain depraved and brutish. Internally the prisoners rot. Rape, buggery, torture, custody without legal sanction, bars and fetters, detention far in excess of the sentence, solitary confinement, lunacy, the brutalising of children, women and casuals, drug trafficking and prostitution rackets run by the superintendents are but the daily routine of prison life. Pulling out eyes as in the Bhagalpur blinding case or the pushing of batons up the anus of prisoners as in Batra’s case is perhaps Sunday’s schedule.”

So, is the solution to put fewer people in prison? Not necessarily. The problem in India is not that we imprison too many people. Indeed Human Rights Watch notes that among Asian countries, while China, India and Thailand have the largest numbers of people in confinement, IIndia incarcerates only a fraction of the number of inmates found in China. And that India’s rate of incarceration is among the lowest in the world, along with that of Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan and Nepal.

Curious about why there is such overcrowding–beyond the typical Indian answer of not spending enough on any infrastructure, be it roads or prisons–I checked out some data in the large Tihar jail system (which, by the way, has to have one of the most impressive web sites for any Indian government outfit.)

It turns out that of the 11,605 prisoners in the Tihar jail system (capacity 6,250) a stunning 79.96% are under trial, awaiting guilty verdicts or sentencing. The “under trial” percentage for women inmates climbs to 87%.

It occurs to me that rather than spend hundreds of millions on expanding our prison infrastructure (sure, we need to spend some of that on modernization), our tax money is much better spent in going after faster trials that will not have so many people in legal limbo. Sure, it is possible that faster trials won’t reduce the overall number of inmates but, clearly, our prisons will have a lot less of their capacity used up by those awaiting sentencing and prison terms. Indeed, nearly 3,000 inmates in the Tihar system have been in prison for more than 12 months awaiting trial. Read detailed statistics here. And given the age of prisoners in Tihar–some 7,200 of the 11,605 are under 30–wouldn’t it be better to move them faster through the system so there can be some realistic attempt at rehabilitation post prison?

The other option, I suppose, is to go the so-called PPP, or private-public partnership model, where prisons are outsourced to private contractors. With their large real estate and captive labor, it is possible that India’s prisons will appeal to private companies (it isn’t that uncommon in the West) though, this opens up a whole slew of issues on how inmates in such prisons are treated and exploited.

The really worrying part is that the Home Ministry is just now asking–and seeking help from private consultants–as to whether the first Rs1,800 crore that has already been spent so far has made any real difference. I, for one, think I already know the answer to that question.

A reader’s comments (below) on my love-hate affair with Airtel (see Love and Hate in Airtel Land blog post here) made me wonder why is it that as paying customers we want to settle for lesser of the evils, a much more pronounced trend in India even among big spending, powerful consumers when it comes to shoddy quality. Is it because there isn’t really a choice in the end or have we come so far from the days when we all knew the horrors of getting a government landline all to well that we are happy with the least shoddy service provider? Here is what the reader wrote:

“I used to think Airtel’s mobile, landline and broad band services were pretty bad till I recently had to deal with Vodafone’s call center on behalf of my husband who was out of town and found his national roaming would not activate. Vodafone, which as Hutch was fine as far as dealing with customers went, sets news standards in poor service and even poorer customer handling. If I get down to it,I will try and send you a small piece on my experience with them. You may revise your opinion of Airtel.” Anjuli Bhargava

This comment and the many that the blog received made me wonder. Rather than settling, what if we use the very fact that customer service is an emotional and evocative issue in India and turn that into leverage and constructively point to where the problems might lie as Mint columnist S. Mitra Kalita did recently in a smart column, also about Airtel’s service?

Her Wider Angle column (see full column and the many comments it evoked online here) titled Please Airtel, Hear My Call makes a compelling case for how smart business strategies (in this case outsourcing customer service) may not necessarily result in higher customer satisfaction. I do think customer service has to be core competency for a service provider and how that competency gets communicated to your third-party employees is the real challenge. What struck me beyond the comments online on her column, was how the idea evoked so many reader experiences. Here are three:

Apropos to the Article titled ‘Please, Airtel, Hear my call’ by S Mitra Kalita (August 28, 2008) I completely agree with her views about the service standards of the customer care executives of various service providers. Not alone Airtel, it is the state of every service provider be it a Bank, an Insurance Company, a DTH Service Provider, a Telecom Operator et al. She has rightly pointed out that the majority of the chaos is due to lack of empowered workforce at the execution level, which lacks both in tools as well as quality training about the processes and query resolution. The fact that the outsourced agencies and the employees do not have the sense of ownership is also very valid. Outsourcing is definitely healthy for the profitability of the company, but it is high time that the service providers realize that in the quest of saving money the situation is worsening day-by-day and might end up in a bigger problem. Service providers need to spend quality time as well as money with these outsourced agencies to gear up the service levels. Yogesh K Gupta