Elizabeth Flock, 07.15.09, 06:00 PM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated August 03, 2009
His $258 million Avahan project on AIDS in India got lost between B-school and brothel.
Read it at Forbes
On a humid afternoon former prostitute Fathima welcomes a group of illiterate women still in the trade and needing protection from AIDS into the Mukta clinic in Pune, India. As a "peer educator," she has the job of conveying to them the message of safety. But the visitors shuffle tentatively amid the expensive-looking English-language posters that paper the walls around them.
Why would a clinic serving illiterate, non-English-speaking visitors use more English than Indian languages?
The answer lies in where that money comes from. The Pune clinic is part of a network of 100-plus nonprofits working under the umbrella of Avahan, an AIDS-prevention effort. Avahan, or "Call to Action," is the brainchild of the world's most generous philanthropist, Bill Gates.
Gates announced the ten-year, $100 million Avahan during his much-publicized visit to the country in 2002. This was, and still is, the largest-ever initiative in India for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
To See The Gates Foundation's Response Click Here
AIDS in India has become an epidemic after nearly two decades of piecemeal efforts to counter it. Millions of poor people have been exposed to the virus; government agencies and private groups didn't have the money to preach safety or treat the infected. Gates showed his seriousness by later raising the Avahan outlay to $258 million.
Seven years after Gates' visit, Fathima (we've changed her name) has counseled the women at the Pune clinic, given them condoms and sent them back home. It is time to worry about the future. The bad news is that Avahan is ready to pack and go soon from the Pune clinic, and Fathima is set to lose her income. (In March Avahan began handing over the reins to the government-run National AIDS Control Organisation, which is unenthusiastic about inheriting the venture.) She doesn't want to slip back into prostitution. At age 45 she doesn't have much of a career in that, anyway.
When it hit the ground in 2003, Avahan set itself three goals: arrest the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus in India, expand the program across the nation and develop a model that the government can adopt. Now, as it begins to wind down, Avahan finds that it hasn't achieved any of these goals. Doubtless the effort has made a dent in the problem, but the impact is small in relation to the spending. When NACO takes over, it will try to prune the costs of the program. Salaries for peer educators will go.
When the Gates Foundation got down to work in India, Avahan was ready to spend what it took to get the best bosses; it started its search at McKinsey, the consulting powerhouse. The recruiters zeroed in on Ashok Alexander, now 55, who had spent 17 years turning Indian businesses into global challengers. "They made me an offer I couldn't refuse," Alexander recalls, sitting at his plush office in New Delhi. "I liked the ambitious arch of the HIV/AIDS program, and it was a chance for me to do something new."
Soon 15 people were hired. Ten of them had come from private-sector backgrounds. They tackled the virus much as they would a problem at McKinsey. Alexander's office is papered with data and maps containing colored dots plotting the spread of the disease across the country. The argot is sheer B-school: Avahan is a "venture," the prevention program a "franchise," a prostitute a "consumer."
At Avahan Alexander and his colleagues oversaw the work of more than 100 other groups. The lack of practical experience at the top manifested itself in different ways. When Avahan introduced sleek mobile vans to bring clinics directly to the brothels, the expensive-looking vehicles were sometimes met with intense suspicion. At the Mukta clinic, Dr. Laxmi Mali says the women initially thought the van was from the police or the government. They refused help.
Accounts of the early missteps are largely anecdotal. But in 2005 an internal evaluation showed a big portion of Avahan's efforts had gone to waste. As many as 31,000 people had been contacted by Avahan's outreach program, but only 11,000 had visited the clinics. The Avahan executives had assumed that the peer educators would already know what the prevention services were without explanation; the reality was that they didn't.
Avahan's craving for scale also meant it overshot by a lot. It started with a bang in six states, with 50 sites for truckers in the south. But by mid-2005 only 12% of truck drivers were even aware of its services, and only 7% took advantage of them. This forced Avahan to reduce the sites to 20. For similar reasons Avahan's 6,000 centers for treating sexually transmitted diseases were reduced to 800.
At the core of Avahan's failure to make a serious difference in India's fight against AIDS is the way it spent money. In a country where a branded condom sells for 10 cents, where did Avahan's money go? It's difficult to say because Avahan's finances are largely opaque. Avahan's outlets sell 5 million condoms a month and give away another 10 million. Asked how so much could be spent on condoms, Alexander laughs, saying, "It's a bit more complicated than that." Probed further, Alexander says he doesn't know the financials offhand. Nor was he able to give them later.
Travel was one drain. Jonty Rajagopalan, Avahan program officer from 2006 to 2008, says she would take flights every month from her base in Hyderabad to her focus areas in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, instead of being based in a focus area.
Another chunk: salaries. Alexander's compensation was $424,900 in 2007, the second highest in the foundation globally, not including presidents and operating officers. Avahan's "targeting intervention officers," who oversee the field work, are paid three or four times what a typical NACO officer is paid.
Avahan's marketing was done in style. Eldred Tellis, head of Sankalp, a Mumbai group fighting AIDS that has worked with Avahan, says he has seen a lot of money go into fancy publications reporting the program's work. Very little went to the people on the ground. Vijay Mahajan, the chairman of Basix, a microfinance institution, comments on Avahan: "There is too much money and too many really smart people, with too little coming out."
Knowing that it would have to inherit the project, NACO sent out evaluation teams to sites in four states to get some clarity on costs. NACO's head, Sujatha Rao, says the evaluation threw up one clear message: Large parts of the program are not sustainable by NACO. "We told them you can't create a huge number of assets and then just leave and expect the government to take over everything," says Rao.
But Alexander disagrees. "We are not perpetual funders. We try to be catalytic," he says. "In five years we would hope the HIV/AIDS epidemic is contained enough that we will no longer have to be involved." Either way, it will have to be: Avahan is now repositioning, focusing on maternal and newborn health.
Ashok Row Kavi, consultant for Unaids and chairman of the Humsafar Trust for gay and transgender health, says Avahan's expectations were unrealistic. "They wanted HIV to disappear in five years. For that to happen a lot of people would have to die."
NACO's annual budget is $225 million, none of it currently spent on Avahan. Rao can't find enough money to continue the project. "We can never offer a replicable model. And if we are unable to sustain the program, all of their effort will be for naught," she says.
When probed about the difficulties of handing over the program to the government, Alexander says the transfer is going just fine. Kavi differs; he says that the transfer discussions between NACO and the Gates Foundation are stymied. Costs need to be brought down, but they can't figure out how. He also fears Avahan's now experienced M.B.A.-degreed field monitors, facing shrinking salaries, will depart. The question of running air-conditioned clinics the way Avahan did doesn't even arise.
The biggest hole in quality will appear where it can hurt most. Hussain Makandar, HIV counselor at the Mukta clinic, is worried about condoms: The ones from Avahan are lubricated; the ones from NACO break and the prostitutes stop using them.
Alexander insists that only a tenth of the project will transfer to the government this year, and the rest will happen slowly over the next five. "We're doing a transition program. We're not saying, 'Oh, here's the program, and we're off.'" But NACO and Mukta officials, among others, are watching the calendar, confused.
Adapted from FORBES INDIA, a licensee of Forbes Media.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Who Will Bell the Copycat
Hollywood is watching Indian movies! Not just for their spectacular visuals, but to see which plot is ‘inspired’
by Elizabeth Flock | Jul 22, 2009
Read it at Forbes
W hen a smart, love story-infused revenge saga like Ghajini sweeps the box office, becoming the only Indian film to earn Rs. 100 crore across the country in under a week, it hardly surprises anyone. The film, starring Aamir Khan, was refreshingly unusual for Indian audiences.
But what if the extraordinary story wasn’t screenwriter A.R. Murugadoss’ own? By now, most movie-goers know it wasn’t. They may have even seen the original, American academy award-winning film, Memento (2002).
For many years Bollywood producers have been greenlighting derivatives of foreign films — many of them American. As Sanjay Chel, screenwriter of Partner (2007), which many agree is a replication of the American movie Hitch (2005), says, “We get inspired.” All this while, Hollywood — thousands of miles away and largely unaware of Indian cinema — did not notice that its films were being copied.
But the jig is up. Since the turn of the century, when the government granted official status to Bollywood as an industry, the US slowly started to become aware of Indian cinema. And now, the collision of Los Angeles and Mumbai has put the spotlight on intellectual property rights (IPR). In Bollywood, growing awareness and enforcement of IPR is pushing producers toward more original, local fare. As for Hollywood, it has started going after the copycats.
On June 15, the Bombay High Court stayed the release of BR Films’ Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai, which 20th Century Fox alleges is a remake of their 1992 Oscar Award-winning film My Cousin Vinny. In April, Warner Bros. issued a public notice against any adaptation or remake of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, following rumours that Vipul Shah was making a copycat film.
Mirchi Films was sued by Warner Bros. in March 2008 for the similarity in title between its new release Hari Puttar and Harry Potter, its biggest franchise.
And in 2007, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment threatened a $30 million lawsuit against David Dhawan’s Partner for its flagrant imitation of the movie Hitch.
Ghajini has escaped Hollywood’s wrath only because it is technically a copy of Murgadoss’ earlier Tamil film by the same name — that film is the guilty party.
“After blatantly going all out copying movies for years and calling it their own, it’s finally catching up to [the Bollywood industry],” says Tarun Adarsh, editor of the Mumbai-based Trade Guide Magazine.
But Hollywood faces many challenges in making a case for copyright infringement in India.
The Quagmires of Copyright
Hollywood’s most common mistake is that it often waits until close to the movie’s release date to take legal action because it is not aware of the film until then.
“When the court sees that so many crores have already been put into a movie, they rule in favour of Bollywood,” says Purnima Singh, senior associate for legal firm AZB & Partners.
IPR becomes more complicated when proving the case across cultures. “How do you prove a film is a copy when the audience, judge, or jury has not seen the original?” asks Mohit Kapoor, advocate for Universal Legal Advocates, who deals with entertainment law.
Besides, the Bollywood industry is fragmented, making it harder to take legal action against it. “The Bollywood industry has so many lines of distribution. You cannot attack them all,” says Kapoor.
Entertainment lawyers agree that the key is to get an injunction, but Hollywood has yet to emerge decisively victorious in any copyright case. The Bombay High Court stayed the release of Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai, but Fox has yet to win the $1.4 million it seeks. Hari Puttar was released after a month’s delay. Partner’s case never went to trial, and it was released to box office success.
But Singh says there are several factors that may favour Hollywood in future. International copyright is protected by both the Copyright Act of 1957 and India’s membership in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works — they just need to be better enforced.
And while there haven’t been any financial disasters for Bollywood yet, the industry has begun to feel the effects. Valuable time has been wasted (weeks for Hari Puttar and Partner) and many lakhs lost. Gautam Jain, who did the marketing for Hari Puttar, says of the lawsuit, “We began to worry about the reach of the film. It took up a lot of our time, and was a distraction from our focus.”
Although Partner was released, Hitch’s producers, Sony, acquired the global exclusive satellite broadcasting rights of Partner. (It airs on Sony Entertainment’s Television Asia.) This is a pittance compared to the $30 million they threatened.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a sort of Hollywood watchdog, has also moved. In February, it set up offices in Mumbai to “protect and promote the American film industry”, according to director Rajiv Dalal. It will go after DVD pirates, but also work with Bollywood producers to prevent copycat films. “Before Hollywood was only doing this through consultants. Now we will be more successful because we are here working with the local industry,” Dalal says.
While Hollywood struggles to make its case, Bollywood faces just as many challenges in proving its innocence. Kapoor says the biggest quandary is deciphering what is copyright infringement and what is not. “Copyright is a dynamic issue. If there is exact copy of dialogue, you can easily prove it to be infringement,” he says. “For other aspects — script, screenplay, performance, actors, location — this is difficult to prove one way or the other.”
It is just as thorny for Bollywood to defend itself when working across cultures. Mirchi Films realised this when Warner Bros. approached it about Hari Puttar. The challenge was to explain that ‘Hari’ is a common name in India, and that ‘Puttar’ is the word for ‘son’ in Punjabi.
Inspiration or Copying?
Ronnie Screwvala, CEO of UTV Motion Pictures, insists that there is not as much plagiarism as is made out to be. Directors, too, are dogged in their defense of ‘inspired’ films. Rakesh Roshan, who has been accused of taking inspiration from Hollywood since his first film Khudgarz in 1987, which many say is a replica of the American Kane and Abel (1985), explains it this way: “There are only five or so subjects in the world. We make films on these subjects. We take inspiration from all around, what we read, what we see. These are not copies.”
Even when the case is more transparent, as it was with Partner and Hitch, which most concur was an example of a near-carbon copy, Bollywood is ready to defend its originality. Chel, who wrote the dialogue for Partner, says that any inspired film is ‘Indianised’ and thus cannot be a clone. It all boils down to this: Bollywood and Hollywood are struggling to draw the line between inspiration and copy. But if Hollywood continues to take legal action, and is successful, will Bollywood stop parroting altogether?
Perhaps it already has.
Robbers, No More
Bollywood has become increasingly cognizant of IPR. Singh says the film industry has come to recognise the work product as an asset. “They are starting to wonder, ‘Does this belong to anyone?’” she says.
Singh cites the corporatisation of Bollywood as a major cause of this newfound awareness. A shift from word-of-mouth, trust-based agreements to more clear-cut, professional ones means it is becoming harder to get away with plagiarising.
Rakesh Roshan learned this lesson in April 2008 when he was forced to pay Rs. 2 crore to musician Ram Sampat for a song in his film Krazzy 4 (2008) that Sampat alleged was a near facsimile of his work.
“Everyone knows you can’t cheat any longer,” says Sanjay Bhutiani, CEO of BR Films, who maintains Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai is not a copy. “Indian movies and TV are… now beaming all over the world. Audiences will know when things are lifted from somewhere.”
The new generation of filmmakers don’t want to mimic because they may face legal action, but also because they know audiences will respect them more if they don’t. The last five years has seen a sea change. Screwvala says the industry has undergone a major evolution. Before the turn of the century 90 percent of movies were copies; today, he estimates, 90 percent are original. One factor behind the change is the rise of multiplexes and the exploding middle class, which means a higher-paying and smarter audience with a taste for more creative, original fare.
With more money being made from increased franchising, higher-priced tickets in multiplexes, and the growing diaspora, filmmakers are starting to take more risks. With less government regulation of content, subjects and themes are permissible now that weren’t in the past. But enforcement of copyright may be the real impetus for Bollywood’s transformation.
Production companies are increasingly releasing a host of original, definitively local scripts. UTV Motion Pictures, for example, has moved toward films that reflect a distinctly Indian experience, such as Rang de Basanti (2006), Mumbai Meri Jaan (2008) and A Wednesday (2008).
In the past few years, cinemas have increasingly shown films that have been less formulaic, such as Taare Zameen Par (2007), Chak De! India (2007) and Jodhaa Akbar (2008). Box office numbers show that audiences are responding to this original fare — all three grossed more than Rs. 4.5 crore in the first month of release, as reported by Boxofficeindia.com.
Filmmakers have also begun to tackle delicate subjects in a realistic way, as in Water (2005) and Black Friday (2004), though both were not initially accepted by regulatory bodies and audiences.
Roshan may even be changing his stripes. He says Indian cinema has become more creative and global, and his new project Kites (2009) is a film in English and Spanish. The corporatisation of Bollywood coupled with Hollywood’s tough stance on infringement has put IPR in the minds of filmmakers more than ever before. And this has caused Bollywood to move toward better quality films.
Better films will garner greater respect for the industry globally, and attract foreign investment. Hollywood won’t, then, be just a bully or a cop. And Bollywood won’t have to run. As for Ghajini’s hero, Aamir Khan, he will next appear in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s much-anticipated Three Idiots. The film is still ‘inspired’. But this time it’s homegrown — a loose adaptation of Chetan Bhagat’s famous novel Five Point Someone. It looks like Bollywood might be growing up after all.
OURS AND THEIRS
BANDA YEH BINDAAS HAI (BR FILMS) vs. MY COUSIN VINNY (20TH CENTURY FOX)
In June, the Bombay High Court stayed the release of Ravi Chopra’s Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai. Earlier this year, Fox gave permission to BR Films to make a film loosely based on their 1992 hit My Cousin Vinny, but it maintains it did not give rights for a complete Hindi remake. Fox wants $1.4 million in damages, and an injunction against the release of the film. BR Films claims it has made an original movie.
HARI PUTTAR (MIRCHI MOVIES) vs. HARRY POTTER (WARNER BROS)
In March of 2008, Mirchi Movies was sued by Warner Bros. just before it released the Lucky Kohli-directed film Hari Puttar. Warner Bros. said the similarity in title was too close to its biggest franchise, Harry Potter. It said the title “unfairly sought to confuse consumers and benefit from the well-known and well-loved Harry Potter brand.” Mirchi Movies CEO insisted the plots of the films were in no way similar, and that ‘Hari’ is a popular Indian name, while “puttar” means “son”.
The Delhi High Court rejected the lawsuit filed by Warner Bros. The court said Warner Bros could have brought the case in 2005, when it first learned of the title, but delayed taking action until now. It also said that the audience could easily distinguish between Hari Puttar and Harry Potter.
Hari Puttar was to be released on September 12, 2008. It was delayed because of the court case, and released September 26 in India. It also released in the US and the UK.
PARTNER (K SERA SERA) vs. HITCH (SONY/OVERBROOK ENTERTAINMENT)
In 2007, Sony and Will Smith’s Overbook Entertainment threatened to sue Eros Entertainment and K Sera Sera, claiming that David Dhawan’s Partner was a direct lift of its film Hitch. It reportedly filed for $30 million. It was to be filed in a UK court, where Eros and K Sera Sera are both registered. This was the first time an international film company decided to take legal action against an Indian entertainment company for plagiarism.
Eros, K Sera Sera, Sony, and Overbrook Entertainment have all refused to comment on the outcome of the case. It is believed that the case was settled out of court. Partner was ultimately released, but Sony Entertainment Television Asia acquired the world exclusive satellite broadcasting rights.
by Elizabeth Flock | Jul 22, 2009
Read it at Forbes
W hen a smart, love story-infused revenge saga like Ghajini sweeps the box office, becoming the only Indian film to earn Rs. 100 crore across the country in under a week, it hardly surprises anyone. The film, starring Aamir Khan, was refreshingly unusual for Indian audiences.
But what if the extraordinary story wasn’t screenwriter A.R. Murugadoss’ own? By now, most movie-goers know it wasn’t. They may have even seen the original, American academy award-winning film, Memento (2002).
For many years Bollywood producers have been greenlighting derivatives of foreign films — many of them American. As Sanjay Chel, screenwriter of Partner (2007), which many agree is a replication of the American movie Hitch (2005), says, “We get inspired.” All this while, Hollywood — thousands of miles away and largely unaware of Indian cinema — did not notice that its films were being copied.
But the jig is up. Since the turn of the century, when the government granted official status to Bollywood as an industry, the US slowly started to become aware of Indian cinema. And now, the collision of Los Angeles and Mumbai has put the spotlight on intellectual property rights (IPR). In Bollywood, growing awareness and enforcement of IPR is pushing producers toward more original, local fare. As for Hollywood, it has started going after the copycats.
On June 15, the Bombay High Court stayed the release of BR Films’ Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai, which 20th Century Fox alleges is a remake of their 1992 Oscar Award-winning film My Cousin Vinny. In April, Warner Bros. issued a public notice against any adaptation or remake of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, following rumours that Vipul Shah was making a copycat film.
Mirchi Films was sued by Warner Bros. in March 2008 for the similarity in title between its new release Hari Puttar and Harry Potter, its biggest franchise.
And in 2007, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment threatened a $30 million lawsuit against David Dhawan’s Partner for its flagrant imitation of the movie Hitch.
Ghajini has escaped Hollywood’s wrath only because it is technically a copy of Murgadoss’ earlier Tamil film by the same name — that film is the guilty party.
“After blatantly going all out copying movies for years and calling it their own, it’s finally catching up to [the Bollywood industry],” says Tarun Adarsh, editor of the Mumbai-based Trade Guide Magazine.
But Hollywood faces many challenges in making a case for copyright infringement in India.
The Quagmires of Copyright
Hollywood’s most common mistake is that it often waits until close to the movie’s release date to take legal action because it is not aware of the film until then.
“When the court sees that so many crores have already been put into a movie, they rule in favour of Bollywood,” says Purnima Singh, senior associate for legal firm AZB & Partners.
IPR becomes more complicated when proving the case across cultures. “How do you prove a film is a copy when the audience, judge, or jury has not seen the original?” asks Mohit Kapoor, advocate for Universal Legal Advocates, who deals with entertainment law.
Besides, the Bollywood industry is fragmented, making it harder to take legal action against it. “The Bollywood industry has so many lines of distribution. You cannot attack them all,” says Kapoor.
Entertainment lawyers agree that the key is to get an injunction, but Hollywood has yet to emerge decisively victorious in any copyright case. The Bombay High Court stayed the release of Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai, but Fox has yet to win the $1.4 million it seeks. Hari Puttar was released after a month’s delay. Partner’s case never went to trial, and it was released to box office success.
But Singh says there are several factors that may favour Hollywood in future. International copyright is protected by both the Copyright Act of 1957 and India’s membership in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works — they just need to be better enforced.
And while there haven’t been any financial disasters for Bollywood yet, the industry has begun to feel the effects. Valuable time has been wasted (weeks for Hari Puttar and Partner) and many lakhs lost. Gautam Jain, who did the marketing for Hari Puttar, says of the lawsuit, “We began to worry about the reach of the film. It took up a lot of our time, and was a distraction from our focus.”
Although Partner was released, Hitch’s producers, Sony, acquired the global exclusive satellite broadcasting rights of Partner. (It airs on Sony Entertainment’s Television Asia.) This is a pittance compared to the $30 million they threatened.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a sort of Hollywood watchdog, has also moved. In February, it set up offices in Mumbai to “protect and promote the American film industry”, according to director Rajiv Dalal. It will go after DVD pirates, but also work with Bollywood producers to prevent copycat films. “Before Hollywood was only doing this through consultants. Now we will be more successful because we are here working with the local industry,” Dalal says.
While Hollywood struggles to make its case, Bollywood faces just as many challenges in proving its innocence. Kapoor says the biggest quandary is deciphering what is copyright infringement and what is not. “Copyright is a dynamic issue. If there is exact copy of dialogue, you can easily prove it to be infringement,” he says. “For other aspects — script, screenplay, performance, actors, location — this is difficult to prove one way or the other.”
It is just as thorny for Bollywood to defend itself when working across cultures. Mirchi Films realised this when Warner Bros. approached it about Hari Puttar. The challenge was to explain that ‘Hari’ is a common name in India, and that ‘Puttar’ is the word for ‘son’ in Punjabi.
Inspiration or Copying?
Ronnie Screwvala, CEO of UTV Motion Pictures, insists that there is not as much plagiarism as is made out to be. Directors, too, are dogged in their defense of ‘inspired’ films. Rakesh Roshan, who has been accused of taking inspiration from Hollywood since his first film Khudgarz in 1987, which many say is a replica of the American Kane and Abel (1985), explains it this way: “There are only five or so subjects in the world. We make films on these subjects. We take inspiration from all around, what we read, what we see. These are not copies.”
Even when the case is more transparent, as it was with Partner and Hitch, which most concur was an example of a near-carbon copy, Bollywood is ready to defend its originality. Chel, who wrote the dialogue for Partner, says that any inspired film is ‘Indianised’ and thus cannot be a clone. It all boils down to this: Bollywood and Hollywood are struggling to draw the line between inspiration and copy. But if Hollywood continues to take legal action, and is successful, will Bollywood stop parroting altogether?
Perhaps it already has.
Robbers, No More
Bollywood has become increasingly cognizant of IPR. Singh says the film industry has come to recognise the work product as an asset. “They are starting to wonder, ‘Does this belong to anyone?’” she says.
Singh cites the corporatisation of Bollywood as a major cause of this newfound awareness. A shift from word-of-mouth, trust-based agreements to more clear-cut, professional ones means it is becoming harder to get away with plagiarising.
Rakesh Roshan learned this lesson in April 2008 when he was forced to pay Rs. 2 crore to musician Ram Sampat for a song in his film Krazzy 4 (2008) that Sampat alleged was a near facsimile of his work.
“Everyone knows you can’t cheat any longer,” says Sanjay Bhutiani, CEO of BR Films, who maintains Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai is not a copy. “Indian movies and TV are… now beaming all over the world. Audiences will know when things are lifted from somewhere.”
The new generation of filmmakers don’t want to mimic because they may face legal action, but also because they know audiences will respect them more if they don’t. The last five years has seen a sea change. Screwvala says the industry has undergone a major evolution. Before the turn of the century 90 percent of movies were copies; today, he estimates, 90 percent are original. One factor behind the change is the rise of multiplexes and the exploding middle class, which means a higher-paying and smarter audience with a taste for more creative, original fare.
With more money being made from increased franchising, higher-priced tickets in multiplexes, and the growing diaspora, filmmakers are starting to take more risks. With less government regulation of content, subjects and themes are permissible now that weren’t in the past. But enforcement of copyright may be the real impetus for Bollywood’s transformation.
Production companies are increasingly releasing a host of original, definitively local scripts. UTV Motion Pictures, for example, has moved toward films that reflect a distinctly Indian experience, such as Rang de Basanti (2006), Mumbai Meri Jaan (2008) and A Wednesday (2008).
In the past few years, cinemas have increasingly shown films that have been less formulaic, such as Taare Zameen Par (2007), Chak De! India (2007) and Jodhaa Akbar (2008). Box office numbers show that audiences are responding to this original fare — all three grossed more than Rs. 4.5 crore in the first month of release, as reported by Boxofficeindia.com.
Filmmakers have also begun to tackle delicate subjects in a realistic way, as in Water (2005) and Black Friday (2004), though both were not initially accepted by regulatory bodies and audiences.
Roshan may even be changing his stripes. He says Indian cinema has become more creative and global, and his new project Kites (2009) is a film in English and Spanish. The corporatisation of Bollywood coupled with Hollywood’s tough stance on infringement has put IPR in the minds of filmmakers more than ever before. And this has caused Bollywood to move toward better quality films.
Better films will garner greater respect for the industry globally, and attract foreign investment. Hollywood won’t, then, be just a bully or a cop. And Bollywood won’t have to run. As for Ghajini’s hero, Aamir Khan, he will next appear in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s much-anticipated Three Idiots. The film is still ‘inspired’. But this time it’s homegrown — a loose adaptation of Chetan Bhagat’s famous novel Five Point Someone. It looks like Bollywood might be growing up after all.
OURS AND THEIRS
BANDA YEH BINDAAS HAI (BR FILMS) vs. MY COUSIN VINNY (20TH CENTURY FOX)
In June, the Bombay High Court stayed the release of Ravi Chopra’s Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai. Earlier this year, Fox gave permission to BR Films to make a film loosely based on their 1992 hit My Cousin Vinny, but it maintains it did not give rights for a complete Hindi remake. Fox wants $1.4 million in damages, and an injunction against the release of the film. BR Films claims it has made an original movie.
HARI PUTTAR (MIRCHI MOVIES) vs. HARRY POTTER (WARNER BROS)
In March of 2008, Mirchi Movies was sued by Warner Bros. just before it released the Lucky Kohli-directed film Hari Puttar. Warner Bros. said the similarity in title was too close to its biggest franchise, Harry Potter. It said the title “unfairly sought to confuse consumers and benefit from the well-known and well-loved Harry Potter brand.” Mirchi Movies CEO insisted the plots of the films were in no way similar, and that ‘Hari’ is a popular Indian name, while “puttar” means “son”.
The Delhi High Court rejected the lawsuit filed by Warner Bros. The court said Warner Bros could have brought the case in 2005, when it first learned of the title, but delayed taking action until now. It also said that the audience could easily distinguish between Hari Puttar and Harry Potter.
Hari Puttar was to be released on September 12, 2008. It was delayed because of the court case, and released September 26 in India. It also released in the US and the UK.
PARTNER (K SERA SERA) vs. HITCH (SONY/OVERBROOK ENTERTAINMENT)
In 2007, Sony and Will Smith’s Overbook Entertainment threatened to sue Eros Entertainment and K Sera Sera, claiming that David Dhawan’s Partner was a direct lift of its film Hitch. It reportedly filed for $30 million. It was to be filed in a UK court, where Eros and K Sera Sera are both registered. This was the first time an international film company decided to take legal action against an Indian entertainment company for plagiarism.
Eros, K Sera Sera, Sony, and Overbrook Entertainment have all refused to comment on the outcome of the case. It is believed that the case was settled out of court. Partner was ultimately released, but Sony Entertainment Television Asia acquired the world exclusive satellite broadcasting rights.
Monday, July 20, 2009
When Grandfather Wants To Be Godfather
Anand Deshpande of Persistent Systems thinks he can build global scale and multiply revenues by five times with his new but riskier model
by Elizabeth Flock | Jul 16, 2009
Read it at Forbes
I nscrutable, intense and extremely quiet, Anand Deshpande looks like he has all the answers. He does: If you are talking databases. For the last 19 years, giants like Oracle, IBM and Microsoft have relied upon Deshpande and his company Persistent Systems to remove the bothersome bee from their database bonnet. He is considered the grandfather of outsourced product development (OPD). OPD is when an Indian company does work for tech big daddies like IBM and Cisco and not tech users like Citibank and General Motors. Persistent, cast in the mould of its founder Deshpande, is all about substance and rigour.
It is also a slow-coach. After huffing and puffing all these years, Persistent has a turnover of only $100 million. When Wipro was 20 years old (in 2000) it was six times as big; Infosys was four times as big in 2001 and Cognizant, just 15 years old, is already 28 times the size of Persistent.
There are a couple of explanations for this slow growth. The first is bad childhood memories. Deshpande had to struggle for two years to get land and bank finance to start the company. Then, during its formative years, Persistent’s main customer shut shop. Professor Ed Robertson, who had taught Deshpande at University of Indiana, recalls those days, “I don’t think Anand ever forgot that. He learned a valuable lesson about what can happen to risky start-ups.”
Such experiences made Deshpande very cautious. He avoided the big risks and thus the big opportunities. “Deshpande has never lost money,” says Promod Haque, managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners, and an investor in Persistent.
There is, of course, the “infant industry” argument. “Outsourced product deve¬lopment was only properly born in 2002. Companies are now going fabulous on one or more product lines,” says Peter Harrison, CEO of Global Logic, an OPD firm in Bangalore. Most Indian firms were providing software services. Persistent steered away from that beaten track and followed a different growth trajectory. Deshpande has just this to say, “There is a steady growth at which one likes to operate.”
Steady growth looks great when a company is $5 billion but when it is just $100 million perhaps it is time to be a bit more aggressive.
Now, finally, Persistent is doing exactly that. The grandfather now wants to be the Godfather.
The New Way
Till now, customers told Persistent what to do and then paid for it by the hour. Now, Persistent will propose a solution and get to keep the upside from its sales. It will also get to keep the secret sauce (intellectual property) that it uses to develop the solution. Later, the intellectual property can be reused the same way Google reuses its search technology across the Web, email and documents.
It was crisis that brought opportunity. As the recession took hold, Persistent’s clients took a hard look at their technology spending. Deshpande says he felt the need to change when he saw a presentation from Sequoia Capital. The Silicon Valley venture capital firm projected doomsday in one of its “infamous” presentations on the market, and told all companies, in which it had invested, not to spend. Following that presentation and other gloomy predictions, most of Persistent’s customers reduced their budgets by 15-30 percent.
Not content to remain stagnant, or let Persistent’s reputation bring in business, Deshpande decided to go beat the bushes. “We wanted to go meet them right away in October, but we had to wait, because people were too scared then,” he says.
So, in early January this year, Deshpande finally left for the US, with plans to meet the CEOs of every single customer, and ask what he could do to help.
The scared, cash-strapped CEOs who met Deshpande all told him the same thing: We want you to take responsibility and ownership of the products. Here is our product — show us how to make more out of it. And then, to Deshpande’s disbelief: Can you take some risk on this? You will get some reward.
“When people are down, they are more humble, right?” Deshpande says. “The market is tough. So there is so much more room to discuss new ideas. Even they don’t know what they’re doing right now. So we are taking advantage of that.”
Putting money upfront is clearly one new idea. Take, for example, the work Persistent did for a customer who brought an American product to India in June. Here, Persistent developed its Indian version. The product has now been released through banks in India and Persistent will get paid depending on the number of users that sign up. If the product flops, so does the company. “It shows our willingness now to put our skin in the game,” says Hari Haran, president of Persistent.
Shailendra Singh, principal at Sequoia Capital, who has invested in OPD companies such as Global Logic, talks about the enormous revenue opportunity in doing this. “OPD companies can really move the needle.” Kiran Karnik, former Nasscom president, agrees, saying the risk-revenue model is very appropriate for right now, and that it will even be the model going ahead.
For the model to work, Persistent will need to own the intellectual property. If it has to reinvent the wheel every time, it won’t travel far. Persistent builds drivers, the computer programs that allow higher-level computer programs to interact with a hardware device. “We used to just build drivers for one company. Now, we are building drivers for that one company, and for all their competition,” says Deshpande, smiling at the improbability of it.
by Elizabeth Flock | Jul 16, 2009
Read it at Forbes
I nscrutable, intense and extremely quiet, Anand Deshpande looks like he has all the answers. He does: If you are talking databases. For the last 19 years, giants like Oracle, IBM and Microsoft have relied upon Deshpande and his company Persistent Systems to remove the bothersome bee from their database bonnet. He is considered the grandfather of outsourced product development (OPD). OPD is when an Indian company does work for tech big daddies like IBM and Cisco and not tech users like Citibank and General Motors. Persistent, cast in the mould of its founder Deshpande, is all about substance and rigour.
It is also a slow-coach. After huffing and puffing all these years, Persistent has a turnover of only $100 million. When Wipro was 20 years old (in 2000) it was six times as big; Infosys was four times as big in 2001 and Cognizant, just 15 years old, is already 28 times the size of Persistent.
There are a couple of explanations for this slow growth. The first is bad childhood memories. Deshpande had to struggle for two years to get land and bank finance to start the company. Then, during its formative years, Persistent’s main customer shut shop. Professor Ed Robertson, who had taught Deshpande at University of Indiana, recalls those days, “I don’t think Anand ever forgot that. He learned a valuable lesson about what can happen to risky start-ups.”
Such experiences made Deshpande very cautious. He avoided the big risks and thus the big opportunities. “Deshpande has never lost money,” says Promod Haque, managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners, and an investor in Persistent.
There is, of course, the “infant industry” argument. “Outsourced product deve¬lopment was only properly born in 2002. Companies are now going fabulous on one or more product lines,” says Peter Harrison, CEO of Global Logic, an OPD firm in Bangalore. Most Indian firms were providing software services. Persistent steered away from that beaten track and followed a different growth trajectory. Deshpande has just this to say, “There is a steady growth at which one likes to operate.”
Steady growth looks great when a company is $5 billion but when it is just $100 million perhaps it is time to be a bit more aggressive.
Now, finally, Persistent is doing exactly that. The grandfather now wants to be the Godfather.
The New Way
Till now, customers told Persistent what to do and then paid for it by the hour. Now, Persistent will propose a solution and get to keep the upside from its sales. It will also get to keep the secret sauce (intellectual property) that it uses to develop the solution. Later, the intellectual property can be reused the same way Google reuses its search technology across the Web, email and documents.
It was crisis that brought opportunity. As the recession took hold, Persistent’s clients took a hard look at their technology spending. Deshpande says he felt the need to change when he saw a presentation from Sequoia Capital. The Silicon Valley venture capital firm projected doomsday in one of its “infamous” presentations on the market, and told all companies, in which it had invested, not to spend. Following that presentation and other gloomy predictions, most of Persistent’s customers reduced their budgets by 15-30 percent.
Not content to remain stagnant, or let Persistent’s reputation bring in business, Deshpande decided to go beat the bushes. “We wanted to go meet them right away in October, but we had to wait, because people were too scared then,” he says.
So, in early January this year, Deshpande finally left for the US, with plans to meet the CEOs of every single customer, and ask what he could do to help.
The scared, cash-strapped CEOs who met Deshpande all told him the same thing: We want you to take responsibility and ownership of the products. Here is our product — show us how to make more out of it. And then, to Deshpande’s disbelief: Can you take some risk on this? You will get some reward.
“When people are down, they are more humble, right?” Deshpande says. “The market is tough. So there is so much more room to discuss new ideas. Even they don’t know what they’re doing right now. So we are taking advantage of that.”
Putting money upfront is clearly one new idea. Take, for example, the work Persistent did for a customer who brought an American product to India in June. Here, Persistent developed its Indian version. The product has now been released through banks in India and Persistent will get paid depending on the number of users that sign up. If the product flops, so does the company. “It shows our willingness now to put our skin in the game,” says Hari Haran, president of Persistent.
Shailendra Singh, principal at Sequoia Capital, who has invested in OPD companies such as Global Logic, talks about the enormous revenue opportunity in doing this. “OPD companies can really move the needle.” Kiran Karnik, former Nasscom president, agrees, saying the risk-revenue model is very appropriate for right now, and that it will even be the model going ahead.
For the model to work, Persistent will need to own the intellectual property. If it has to reinvent the wheel every time, it won’t travel far. Persistent builds drivers, the computer programs that allow higher-level computer programs to interact with a hardware device. “We used to just build drivers for one company. Now, we are building drivers for that one company, and for all their competition,” says Deshpande, smiling at the improbability of it.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
An Expression of Dirt and Dust
by Elizabeth Flock
June 24, 2009 7:05pm
On the streets of central Tehran, 1000 protestors continue to demonstrate, ignoring teargas, batons, and government warnings. Throughout the world, a graphic video of the murder of a girl named Neda, the face of the protests, goes viral. And from the highest legislative power in Iran, the Guardian Council, any annulment of the presidential election is ruled out.
Today, the most widespread street protests in Iran since the country’s 1979 Islamic revolution, sparked by the results of the presidential election between Ahmadinebad and Mousavi, rage on.
It started on the evening of June 12, after Ahmadinebad was announced the resounding winner, with 70 percent of the vote. Thousands of Iranians who had voted for Mousavi smelled fraud and took to the streets.
Kourosh Adib, a 32-year-old living in Tehran who supports Mousavi, writes to me from the city that night: “I just came back home. There is marshal law in Tehran, everyone in the streets, burning flames and riot police and plain cloth militia beating people up. We saw millions of people honking their car horns, waving flags, and shouting ‘Down with the dictator!’ And they have arrested most of the reformist political figures, and Mousavi, the righteous winner of the election, is under house arrest.”
While Ahmadinebad is known to be supported by members of the militia and government, part of the rural population, and the elderly, thousands of Iranian demonstrators are saying a 70 percent majority vote is just not possible. The Guardian Council admitted today that 3 million votes were ineligible, but maintains the overall election was valid.
It’s difficult to get facts straight because much of the communication has been cut off. On the night Adib first emails, cell phone and SMS are down and most Internet sites including Facebook and youtube are not available.
Maryam Aghdami, who is Iranian but now lives in the Netherlands, has cousins in Iran who have sent updates. But she says it is difficult to get information or know the truth because of the severe news censorship. “The society has been polarized, and this is exactly what the government wants. People cannot trust each other anymore to speak about political issues and even ask for help.”
As of today, email and messenger services were working only on and off. Some Iranians were able to get through to the outside world using anti-filter software. Others twittered to gather numbers for continuing demonstrations. (For example, http://twitter.com/lotfan)
Today marks 11 days since the election results, the longest protests in the memory of the younger generations. “The streets are calm but heavy”, Adib writes today.
The streets are heavy with many things. Heavy with the death of Neda, the most publicly gruesome death of the number-not-known that have been killed. Heavy with the presence of militia and guards, many who are not Persian but were brought in from Lebanon or Palestine, “since it's never easy for an Iranian police to open fire on his fellow countrymen and women like that,” a cabdriver tells Adib. Heavy with a seemingly-fraudulent election that no one can really be sure of.
And heavy with the last word of the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenai, who said that Ahmadinejad’s victory was legitimate, and that the protests would now be stifled. The Iranian people do not question the Ayatollah.
At least not before. But on Saturday, the protesters turned their wrath from Ahmadinejad to the Supreme Leader himself. “These days the people are shouting ‘Down with Khamenai’,” says Adib.
Yet neither Adib nor a 27-year-old Iranian engineer living in Mumbai, who wishes not to be named for safety reasons, thinks the leadership will change. “They will NEVER back down from their initial statement, especially now that the big dictator has put his signature and support,” says Adib.
The engineer, who is moving back to Iran from India today because a work transfer, talks to me about going back to Tehran over the phone last night. Just listening to the lack of energy in his voice convinces me real change is impossible.
“It’s going nowhere. I’m not scared to go back there. I’m just sorry. This is my hometown, my home country. In the election, we were just choosing between bad and worse, and that won’t change. I won’t go to the street and fight with police. There is no point,” he says.
Last week, Ahmadinejad called those who did go to the street and fight police an “expression of dirt and dust”. Now, they have taken up the slogan: “You are the real dust, you are the enemy of this land.”
Enemy or not, Ahamdinejad looks set to remain their president. The Ayatollah and the Guardian Council have uttered the last word. And the demonstrations are already lessening.
It was a powerful step toward Iran’s democracy, but was there never any hope for the demonstrators?
The engineer pauses and thinks for a long moment, then says, “No, there wasn’t. Because they won’t stop until they control everything, even if they have to kill a lot people.”
June 24, 2009 7:05pm
On the streets of central Tehran, 1000 protestors continue to demonstrate, ignoring teargas, batons, and government warnings. Throughout the world, a graphic video of the murder of a girl named Neda, the face of the protests, goes viral. And from the highest legislative power in Iran, the Guardian Council, any annulment of the presidential election is ruled out.
Today, the most widespread street protests in Iran since the country’s 1979 Islamic revolution, sparked by the results of the presidential election between Ahmadinebad and Mousavi, rage on.
It started on the evening of June 12, after Ahmadinebad was announced the resounding winner, with 70 percent of the vote. Thousands of Iranians who had voted for Mousavi smelled fraud and took to the streets.
Kourosh Adib, a 32-year-old living in Tehran who supports Mousavi, writes to me from the city that night: “I just came back home. There is marshal law in Tehran, everyone in the streets, burning flames and riot police and plain cloth militia beating people up. We saw millions of people honking their car horns, waving flags, and shouting ‘Down with the dictator!’ And they have arrested most of the reformist political figures, and Mousavi, the righteous winner of the election, is under house arrest.”
While Ahmadinebad is known to be supported by members of the militia and government, part of the rural population, and the elderly, thousands of Iranian demonstrators are saying a 70 percent majority vote is just not possible. The Guardian Council admitted today that 3 million votes were ineligible, but maintains the overall election was valid.
It’s difficult to get facts straight because much of the communication has been cut off. On the night Adib first emails, cell phone and SMS are down and most Internet sites including Facebook and youtube are not available.
Maryam Aghdami, who is Iranian but now lives in the Netherlands, has cousins in Iran who have sent updates. But she says it is difficult to get information or know the truth because of the severe news censorship. “The society has been polarized, and this is exactly what the government wants. People cannot trust each other anymore to speak about political issues and even ask for help.”
As of today, email and messenger services were working only on and off. Some Iranians were able to get through to the outside world using anti-filter software. Others twittered to gather numbers for continuing demonstrations. (For example, http://twitter.com/lotfan)
Today marks 11 days since the election results, the longest protests in the memory of the younger generations. “The streets are calm but heavy”, Adib writes today.
The streets are heavy with many things. Heavy with the death of Neda, the most publicly gruesome death of the number-not-known that have been killed. Heavy with the presence of militia and guards, many who are not Persian but were brought in from Lebanon or Palestine, “since it's never easy for an Iranian police to open fire on his fellow countrymen and women like that,” a cabdriver tells Adib. Heavy with a seemingly-fraudulent election that no one can really be sure of.
And heavy with the last word of the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenai, who said that Ahmadinejad’s victory was legitimate, and that the protests would now be stifled. The Iranian people do not question the Ayatollah.
At least not before. But on Saturday, the protesters turned their wrath from Ahmadinejad to the Supreme Leader himself. “These days the people are shouting ‘Down with Khamenai’,” says Adib.
Yet neither Adib nor a 27-year-old Iranian engineer living in Mumbai, who wishes not to be named for safety reasons, thinks the leadership will change. “They will NEVER back down from their initial statement, especially now that the big dictator has put his signature and support,” says Adib.
The engineer, who is moving back to Iran from India today because a work transfer, talks to me about going back to Tehran over the phone last night. Just listening to the lack of energy in his voice convinces me real change is impossible.
“It’s going nowhere. I’m not scared to go back there. I’m just sorry. This is my hometown, my home country. In the election, we were just choosing between bad and worse, and that won’t change. I won’t go to the street and fight with police. There is no point,” he says.
Last week, Ahmadinejad called those who did go to the street and fight police an “expression of dirt and dust”. Now, they have taken up the slogan: “You are the real dust, you are the enemy of this land.”
Enemy or not, Ahamdinejad looks set to remain their president. The Ayatollah and the Guardian Council have uttered the last word. And the demonstrations are already lessening.
It was a powerful step toward Iran’s democracy, but was there never any hope for the demonstrators?
The engineer pauses and thinks for a long moment, then says, “No, there wasn’t. Because they won’t stop until they control everything, even if they have to kill a lot people.”
Spunky and Puffing
Scary pictures on cigarette packs, ever increasing taxes, zone restrictions... Governments across the world have tried many tricks to discourage smoking. But do they work?
by Elizabeth Flock | Jun 23, 2009
Say What You Like
Labels like Tobacco smoke can kill babies have been put on cigarette packs for years. But only some countries take note. In Canada, a study found they were widely read and the odds were 1:11 that the smokers would quit. But in China, 70 percent of consumers were numb to those labels. The tradition of gifting cigarettes as a sign of respect and love continued unabated.
Bring on Death
Smokers in India had better prepare to see the picture of a cancerous mouth tumour on the packs they buy. But it will be nothing compared to a brand called Death that achieved a cult status in the UK in the early 1990s. Even its skull and crossbones logo didn’t deter smokers.
Step Outside, Please
Bhutan is the only country to ban smoking lock, stock and barrel. France, UK and Germany banned it in public places. India did the same thing, though it’s not clear what is a public space. In Ireland, smoking actually increased after the smoking ban in 2004.
Made for Each Other
US kids in the 1960s were more likely to recognise Joe Camel than Mickey Mouse thanks to the barrage of cigarette ads. But things changed. By 2005, the WHO had cracked down on 168 countries with a treaty ban on tobacco advertising. But nowhere has smoking reduced for want of ads.
A One Rupee Fix
Taxation can control smoking in price-sensitive regions. But in India, while taxes have progressively increased on cigarettes, a pack of bidis is still just Rs. 4 – Rs. 5 and chewing tobacco Re. 1. Let the government keep raising taxes. One rupee can get you all the high you need.
One That Clicked
New York City saw a decade had passed with no decrease in smoking. Then the officials got into the act. Suddenly there were smoke-free workplaces, tobacco education, cessation services etc. etc. In two years, the city had 200,000 fewer smokers.
by Elizabeth Flock | Jun 23, 2009
Say What You Like
Labels like Tobacco smoke can kill babies have been put on cigarette packs for years. But only some countries take note. In Canada, a study found they were widely read and the odds were 1:11 that the smokers would quit. But in China, 70 percent of consumers were numb to those labels. The tradition of gifting cigarettes as a sign of respect and love continued unabated.
Bring on Death
Smokers in India had better prepare to see the picture of a cancerous mouth tumour on the packs they buy. But it will be nothing compared to a brand called Death that achieved a cult status in the UK in the early 1990s. Even its skull and crossbones logo didn’t deter smokers.
Step Outside, Please
Bhutan is the only country to ban smoking lock, stock and barrel. France, UK and Germany banned it in public places. India did the same thing, though it’s not clear what is a public space. In Ireland, smoking actually increased after the smoking ban in 2004.
Made for Each Other
US kids in the 1960s were more likely to recognise Joe Camel than Mickey Mouse thanks to the barrage of cigarette ads. But things changed. By 2005, the WHO had cracked down on 168 countries with a treaty ban on tobacco advertising. But nowhere has smoking reduced for want of ads.
A One Rupee Fix
Taxation can control smoking in price-sensitive regions. But in India, while taxes have progressively increased on cigarettes, a pack of bidis is still just Rs. 4 – Rs. 5 and chewing tobacco Re. 1. Let the government keep raising taxes. One rupee can get you all the high you need.
One That Clicked
New York City saw a decade had passed with no decrease in smoking. Then the officials got into the act. Suddenly there were smoke-free workplaces, tobacco education, cessation services etc. etc. In two years, the city had 200,000 fewer smokers.
Whatever You Can Do, I Can Do Better
by Elizabeth Flock | Jun 9, 2009
Read it at Forbes
Andre Agassi vs. Pete Sampras (Tennis)
They were polar opposites, not unlike Federer and Nadal. They traded world No. 1 rankings throughout Whatever You Can Do, I Can Do Betterthe ’90s, and faced off in 34 matches. Their rivalry was often accompanied with a smile after the match. Their last match up? The 2002 US open in which Sampras won and then famously retired. But rumours are the Titans will butt heads once more this year.
Ayrton Senna vs. Alain Prost (Formula 1)
Never has there been a rivalry so bitter in Formula 1. Though Senna and Schumacher could have been big, the Brazilian died in a heart wrenching accident that changed the face of Formula 1 forever. The sport was then forced to re-introduce driver aids and the Grand Prix Drivers’ association was re-formed which has since advocated the “safety first” principle which has dominated the sport.
In 1988, Senna joined Prost at the McLaren team and their heated rivalry soon became a dangerous one. They’ve pushed one another into pit walls, forced their way past in corners, and even collided in 1989. Senna was known as the fastest man, while Prost was the smartest. The on-track rivalry continued until 1993, but despite a hostile Grand Prix, Senna and Prost actually embraced. Senna was killed in at the San Marino Grand Prix a year later.
Arnold Palmer vs. Jack Nicklaus (Golf)
When Nicklaus entered the scene, Palmer was the unquestioned “King” of the game. And he was wildly popular, as one of the first golfers to appear on TV. But Nicklaus soon proved to have more skill, and the rivalry between the two reached its pinnacle at the 1962 US Open at Oakmont. Jack Nicklaus overcame a 3 shot deficit toArnold Palmer to ultimately force a playoff, and beat Palmer 71 to 74.
Wilt Chamberlain vs. Bill Russell (Basketball)
There were only nine NBA teams for most of the ’60s, so Chamberlain and Russell squared off an incredible eight to 12 times a season. Russell’s Celtics always won, but Chamberlain was clearly the superior player with his offensive magic and strength. Try this on for size: in 1961-62, Wilt averaged 50.4 points per game, but the Celtics still beat the Philadelphia Warriors a depressing 8/12 games.
Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier (Boxing)
They fought three times, each fight more nail-biting than the one before. Their opener at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1971 is dubbed the fight of the century. Frazier won, by the way. But Ali didn’t give up. In the rematch, Ali dominated, and in the third fight - The Thrilla in Manila - he destroyed Frazier.
Bobby Fischer vs. Boris Spassky (Chess)
America’s Fischer dramatically confronted the Soviet Spassky on the chessboard at the tail-end of the Cold War and at a time when the Soviet Union had long held a stranglehold on the game. Fischer was a strident critic of the USSR style of playing, which often ended in a draw. After a month-and-a-half-long game, and 40 moves, the eccentric Fischer won, becoming the first American to become world champion in almost 100 years. And dethroned the East.
Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova (Tennis)
The physically powerful and outspoken Navratilova was the perfect foil for the feminine but overwhelmingly ambitious Evert. Though at first they seemed evenly matched, Navratilova increasingly dominated Evert on the court over time. Evert didn’t give up, but ambition eventually lost out to strength.
Read it at Forbes
Andre Agassi vs. Pete Sampras (Tennis)
They were polar opposites, not unlike Federer and Nadal. They traded world No. 1 rankings throughout Whatever You Can Do, I Can Do Betterthe ’90s, and faced off in 34 matches. Their rivalry was often accompanied with a smile after the match. Their last match up? The 2002 US open in which Sampras won and then famously retired. But rumours are the Titans will butt heads once more this year.
Ayrton Senna vs. Alain Prost (Formula 1)
Never has there been a rivalry so bitter in Formula 1. Though Senna and Schumacher could have been big, the Brazilian died in a heart wrenching accident that changed the face of Formula 1 forever. The sport was then forced to re-introduce driver aids and the Grand Prix Drivers’ association was re-formed which has since advocated the “safety first” principle which has dominated the sport.
In 1988, Senna joined Prost at the McLaren team and their heated rivalry soon became a dangerous one. They’ve pushed one another into pit walls, forced their way past in corners, and even collided in 1989. Senna was known as the fastest man, while Prost was the smartest. The on-track rivalry continued until 1993, but despite a hostile Grand Prix, Senna and Prost actually embraced. Senna was killed in at the San Marino Grand Prix a year later.
Arnold Palmer vs. Jack Nicklaus (Golf)
When Nicklaus entered the scene, Palmer was the unquestioned “King” of the game. And he was wildly popular, as one of the first golfers to appear on TV. But Nicklaus soon proved to have more skill, and the rivalry between the two reached its pinnacle at the 1962 US Open at Oakmont. Jack Nicklaus overcame a 3 shot deficit toArnold Palmer to ultimately force a playoff, and beat Palmer 71 to 74.
Wilt Chamberlain vs. Bill Russell (Basketball)
There were only nine NBA teams for most of the ’60s, so Chamberlain and Russell squared off an incredible eight to 12 times a season. Russell’s Celtics always won, but Chamberlain was clearly the superior player with his offensive magic and strength. Try this on for size: in 1961-62, Wilt averaged 50.4 points per game, but the Celtics still beat the Philadelphia Warriors a depressing 8/12 games.
Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier (Boxing)
They fought three times, each fight more nail-biting than the one before. Their opener at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1971 is dubbed the fight of the century. Frazier won, by the way. But Ali didn’t give up. In the rematch, Ali dominated, and in the third fight - The Thrilla in Manila - he destroyed Frazier.
Bobby Fischer vs. Boris Spassky (Chess)
America’s Fischer dramatically confronted the Soviet Spassky on the chessboard at the tail-end of the Cold War and at a time when the Soviet Union had long held a stranglehold on the game. Fischer was a strident critic of the USSR style of playing, which often ended in a draw. After a month-and-a-half-long game, and 40 moves, the eccentric Fischer won, becoming the first American to become world champion in almost 100 years. And dethroned the East.
Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova (Tennis)
The physically powerful and outspoken Navratilova was the perfect foil for the feminine but overwhelmingly ambitious Evert. Though at first they seemed evenly matched, Navratilova increasingly dominated Evert on the court over time. Evert didn’t give up, but ambition eventually lost out to strength.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Can Roger Get His Mojo Back?
How Federer, arguably the greatest tennis player of all time, can overcome the Nadal hoodoo
by Elizabeth Flock, Shishir Prasad | Jun 5, 2009
Read it at Forbes
T hey will never forget you
Till somebody new comes along
Where you been lately
There’s a new kid in town
Everybody loves him, don’t they?
(New Kid in Town — Eagles)
Remember those National Geographic documentaries? “…And then the ageing alpha male ape / lion / zebra, Nabanga, is challenged to a fight by the younger, more aggressive Kiwanga. After a brutal contest, Kiwanga wins and becomes the new leader of the pack. Nabanga limps away into oblivion.”
This is that moment.
Roger Federer wept a few months ago. All things that were in his heart — the French Open, his personal fiefdom Wimbledon (where he was a five-time champ), and the Australian Open — were now firmly clenched between Rafael Nadal’s pearly teeth.
Time for the Fed to hobble off into retirement?
Apes have to follow the evolutionary script. Humans don’t.
Federer has to figure out a way to deal with his Hispanic nemesis, and do it quickly. The French Open and Wimbledon are best places to unveil the new Federer.
Begin at the beginning then.
“Federer should realise this isn’t just a loss. This is dethronement,” says Vijay Amritraj, a Top Twenty player on the men’s tour in the ’80s. If Federer accepts that he is no longer the king the pressure comes off. Nadal becomes the man to beat, which leaves Federer more relaxed. Right now, Nadal is the Buddha with a tennis racquet. He has the confidence that comes from knowing you will win. “The winner is always relaxed,” says Dr. Gary Canivez, head of Apex Sports Psychology Services, and goes on to talk of Usain Bolt at the last Olympics: “He was effortless. You look at the other runners, and their faces show that they are straining. They are not efficient.”
Once Federer has reminded himself how to relax, the next step is to get over the feeling of loss. He has to grieve, yes. His rise to the top was so swift, and his domination of the courts so complete that he never really had to learn how to lose. Sure, there was the odd slip here and there, but no one doubted he was king. Not surprising, then, that the big match losses at Nadal’s hands have cut really deep.
But he must come to terms with losing, go beyond, and realise that this, too, will pass. Federer has always seemed to have a mature head on his shoulders, so much so that we often forget he is still a young man. He got married in April, and the changed priorities that come with that big personal step should help him move on.
Then he must rededicate himself to beating Nadal.
His win over Nadal at the Madrid Open in mid-May — on clay! — ending a five-match losing streak (which included three Grand Slam finals) would have done his confidence a lot of good. What’s more, it showed the world that the SuperSpaniard was human: It was Nadal’s first loss on clay in over a year, after 33 wins in a row.
Important as the mental conditioning is, Federer also has to improve his fitness. At his peak, he had the grace of a Nureyev. His anticipation was great and his timing exquisite. But opponents figure these things out, as they did with Martina Hingis, women’s world number one in the late ’90s. Players like the Williams sisters, Lindsay Davenport and Maria Sharapova were physically stronger and hit the ball much harder and faster. They figured out that they could blitz her with their speed and power, throwing her timing off. She never really recovered from that.
As the Federer-Nadal rivalry has intensified, Nadal, never a weakling, has become even stronger. In the ’09 Australian, Nadal in the fifth looked like he could go on for another five. Federer doesn’t have to get muscle-bound, but he must build up his stamina; everyone knows that when you’re tired, your timing suffers. For Federer, the touch artist, it’s crucial that his body is fully-tuned and cooperative, even if it goes to the fifth set.
Federer must also take a long, hard look at his game and jettison what isn’t working. Amritraj suggests that Federer improve his backhand slice defence on the Nadal forehand; they’re not deep enough, and he’s giving away easy points.
Champions, in such situations, come back with new weapons. “Mats Wilander,” says Amritraj, “took three months off from the tour in 1988 to develop a backhand slice. He came back and won the French, the Australian and the US open that year.”
For Federer, it is slightly easier. He already has all the shots. He just needs to get a good game-plan together, and stick to it.
Amritraj talks about the days when John McEnroe had him in knots. “I had beaten Borg four or five times and Connors a few times too, but couldn’t play McEnroe. I sat down with Roy Emerson, my coach, worked out a plan, wrote it on the back of a visiting card and kept it in my kit.” At every time-out, Amritraj would look at the card to make sure he was following the plan. And he did eventually beat Mac the Mouth.
So let’s talk tactics.
Nadal’s hitting zone is six feet behind the baseline. That’s because of the power and spin that his racket generates, not to speak of his famous biceps. “If I were to use the same racket and hit a shot,” says Amritraj, “it will still be rising as it hits the cheap seats.”
Federer needs to get him out of that zone, and the way to do that is to use the drop shot more often. He must keep Nadal always wondering when he’s going to drop one in the forecourt.
To make the drop shot work, though, Federer’s deadly forehand has to work much harder than it has been doing lately. “The forehand went down last year [at the French Open], and Roger went down,” says Luke Jensen, former world number 6 in men’s doubles. With the forehand working, Federer will neutralise Nadal’s forehand. And will make Nadal stay back to defend against it, which will provide opportunities for the drop shot. Not easy, of course, because Nadal is so darn quick.
But then Federer wasn’t king of the jungle for so many years for nothing.
While this story was being written, the unprecedented happened: Nadal suffered his first ever loss in the French Open. Federer owes Robin Soderling a hearty “Graçias,” for putting another dent in Rafa’s aura. Federer now has his chance to snag that elusive French title and bury the past. He’s not going to see Nadal across the net for at least another month. And that will be on his beloved Wimbledon grass.
Go Nabanga!
by Elizabeth Flock, Shishir Prasad | Jun 5, 2009
Read it at Forbes
T hey will never forget you
Till somebody new comes along
Where you been lately
There’s a new kid in town
Everybody loves him, don’t they?
(New Kid in Town — Eagles)
Remember those National Geographic documentaries? “…And then the ageing alpha male ape / lion / zebra, Nabanga, is challenged to a fight by the younger, more aggressive Kiwanga. After a brutal contest, Kiwanga wins and becomes the new leader of the pack. Nabanga limps away into oblivion.”
This is that moment.
Roger Federer wept a few months ago. All things that were in his heart — the French Open, his personal fiefdom Wimbledon (where he was a five-time champ), and the Australian Open — were now firmly clenched between Rafael Nadal’s pearly teeth.
Time for the Fed to hobble off into retirement?
Apes have to follow the evolutionary script. Humans don’t.
Federer has to figure out a way to deal with his Hispanic nemesis, and do it quickly. The French Open and Wimbledon are best places to unveil the new Federer.
Begin at the beginning then.
“Federer should realise this isn’t just a loss. This is dethronement,” says Vijay Amritraj, a Top Twenty player on the men’s tour in the ’80s. If Federer accepts that he is no longer the king the pressure comes off. Nadal becomes the man to beat, which leaves Federer more relaxed. Right now, Nadal is the Buddha with a tennis racquet. He has the confidence that comes from knowing you will win. “The winner is always relaxed,” says Dr. Gary Canivez, head of Apex Sports Psychology Services, and goes on to talk of Usain Bolt at the last Olympics: “He was effortless. You look at the other runners, and their faces show that they are straining. They are not efficient.”
Once Federer has reminded himself how to relax, the next step is to get over the feeling of loss. He has to grieve, yes. His rise to the top was so swift, and his domination of the courts so complete that he never really had to learn how to lose. Sure, there was the odd slip here and there, but no one doubted he was king. Not surprising, then, that the big match losses at Nadal’s hands have cut really deep.
But he must come to terms with losing, go beyond, and realise that this, too, will pass. Federer has always seemed to have a mature head on his shoulders, so much so that we often forget he is still a young man. He got married in April, and the changed priorities that come with that big personal step should help him move on.
Then he must rededicate himself to beating Nadal.
His win over Nadal at the Madrid Open in mid-May — on clay! — ending a five-match losing streak (which included three Grand Slam finals) would have done his confidence a lot of good. What’s more, it showed the world that the SuperSpaniard was human: It was Nadal’s first loss on clay in over a year, after 33 wins in a row.
Important as the mental conditioning is, Federer also has to improve his fitness. At his peak, he had the grace of a Nureyev. His anticipation was great and his timing exquisite. But opponents figure these things out, as they did with Martina Hingis, women’s world number one in the late ’90s. Players like the Williams sisters, Lindsay Davenport and Maria Sharapova were physically stronger and hit the ball much harder and faster. They figured out that they could blitz her with their speed and power, throwing her timing off. She never really recovered from that.
As the Federer-Nadal rivalry has intensified, Nadal, never a weakling, has become even stronger. In the ’09 Australian, Nadal in the fifth looked like he could go on for another five. Federer doesn’t have to get muscle-bound, but he must build up his stamina; everyone knows that when you’re tired, your timing suffers. For Federer, the touch artist, it’s crucial that his body is fully-tuned and cooperative, even if it goes to the fifth set.
Federer must also take a long, hard look at his game and jettison what isn’t working. Amritraj suggests that Federer improve his backhand slice defence on the Nadal forehand; they’re not deep enough, and he’s giving away easy points.
Champions, in such situations, come back with new weapons. “Mats Wilander,” says Amritraj, “took three months off from the tour in 1988 to develop a backhand slice. He came back and won the French, the Australian and the US open that year.”
For Federer, it is slightly easier. He already has all the shots. He just needs to get a good game-plan together, and stick to it.
Amritraj talks about the days when John McEnroe had him in knots. “I had beaten Borg four or five times and Connors a few times too, but couldn’t play McEnroe. I sat down with Roy Emerson, my coach, worked out a plan, wrote it on the back of a visiting card and kept it in my kit.” At every time-out, Amritraj would look at the card to make sure he was following the plan. And he did eventually beat Mac the Mouth.
So let’s talk tactics.
Nadal’s hitting zone is six feet behind the baseline. That’s because of the power and spin that his racket generates, not to speak of his famous biceps. “If I were to use the same racket and hit a shot,” says Amritraj, “it will still be rising as it hits the cheap seats.”
Federer needs to get him out of that zone, and the way to do that is to use the drop shot more often. He must keep Nadal always wondering when he’s going to drop one in the forecourt.
To make the drop shot work, though, Federer’s deadly forehand has to work much harder than it has been doing lately. “The forehand went down last year [at the French Open], and Roger went down,” says Luke Jensen, former world number 6 in men’s doubles. With the forehand working, Federer will neutralise Nadal’s forehand. And will make Nadal stay back to defend against it, which will provide opportunities for the drop shot. Not easy, of course, because Nadal is so darn quick.
But then Federer wasn’t king of the jungle for so many years for nothing.
While this story was being written, the unprecedented happened: Nadal suffered his first ever loss in the French Open. Federer owes Robin Soderling a hearty “Graçias,” for putting another dent in Rafa’s aura. Federer now has his chance to snag that elusive French title and bury the past. He’s not going to see Nadal across the net for at least another month. And that will be on his beloved Wimbledon grass.
Go Nabanga!
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