Gauravonomics Blog

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My friends Ajay, Ramya, Melody and Sakshi were recently quoted in a Hindustan Times story on women bloggers in India.

Interestingly, another friend Neha Tara Mehta wrote the story and she tells me that the idea of the story came out of a conversation we had a couple of months back.

Here’s the full text of the story –

Blogos-unf@ir!

Neha Tara Mehta, Hindustan Times
August 09, 2008

It’s not all fair on the blogosphere, with an increasing number of women bloggers being harassed with hate mails and nasty, anonymous comments, often with sexual undertones and even stalkers.

Popular mommy blogger The Mad Momma who writes The Brat The Bean and Bedlam calls trolls (people who post nasty comments on blogs) “pestilence”. “They can’t accept the fact that somebody who they think is typically bovine and child-centric could have an opinion, on say, Tibet. These people find it annoying and mystifying that I am just a mommy and my blog is popular.”

The Mad Momma gets nasty feedback not only on her blog but also on other blogs. “My six-month old daughter has been called snot-eating and shit-sniffing. There was a post that said that my husband earns Rs 40 lakh a month and that I pretend to be poor when I write about recycling things,” she says.

Quick Summary: Check out my interview in Indian daily Hindustan Times for ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’, my year-long book-as-a-blog experiment in why we choose to consume or not.

‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ is my year-long blog-as-a-book experiment in why we choose to consume, or not.

If you haven’t yet subscribed to ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’, you should subscribe to it now, for free, in a feed reader, or by e-mail.

Yesterday, my first interview for ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ was published in Indian daily Hindustan Times.

The interview was published on the front page of the Delhi edition –

– and the city section in the Mumbai edition –

One interesting thing I learned yesterday is that different editions of a newspaper may publish different versions of a story.

The Mumbai Edition published the full story — see text below — complete with my rules and URL.

The Delhi Edition published a much shorter version of the story — also available online — but it was on the front page and I’m not complaining at all.

Quick Summary: Check out my first podcast on Indicast where Aditya Mhatre, Aditya Mishra, VeerChand Bothra and I discuss why startups need workaholics and why mobile will drive web 2.0 usage in India.

My First Podcast on Indicast

I had a great time last Sunday recording my first podcast with Aditya Mhatre, Aditya Mishra, VeerChand Bothra (tweet) on why startups need workaholics and why mobile will drive web 2.0 usage in India (tweet).

All three of them have extremely rich backgrounds, resulting in an extremely vibrant discussion —

- Aditya Mhatre is India’s leading podcaster at Indicast (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- VeerChand Bothra is at the center of India’s mobile boom, as MobilePundit, as organizer of Mumbai Mobile Mondays and as VP at NetCore Solutions (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Aditya Mishra is deeply involved in the startup ecosystem in India through his work (he has the fancy title of Entrepreneur-in-Residence at TCS) and his role as the organizer of BarCamp and Kickstart (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

Quick Summary: I was quoted yesterday in Indian daily Hindustan Times’ article on how Indian corporates are embracing blogging and social networking as collaborative tools.

I was quoted yesterday in Indian daily Hindustan Times’ article on how Indian corporates are embracing blogging and social networking as collaborative tools –

Some, like Gaurav Mishra, the Indica brand head, use their personal brand – created over years of blogging – to promote the brand they work for. “My blog benefits because my real-life experience gives credibility to my posts, and my offline avatar benefits because my online presence makes it possible to meet and build an impression on people who wouldn’t have known of me otherwise.” Lately, Mishra has promoted a new ad campaign for his brand on his blog and Facebook account.

A serious concern for employers could be what their employees say publicly on such sites. Says Mishra, “I ensure that my entire web presence is squeaky clean so that even if I put it on my resume, it can hold up to close scrutiny.”

Quick Summary: Yours truly was featured today in Indian daily Hindustan Times’ full page story on Young India Forum panel discussion on the Indian Budget 2008.

Yesterday, I was part of a Hindustan Times Young India Forum panel discussion on the Indian Budget 2008. The Young India Forum is an initiative by Hindustan Times to “drive change and reach more people more directly”.

Hindustan Times had put together an interesting panel consisting of young film-makers, entrepreneurs, and corporate fast-trackers and I had a great time at the panel discussion –

Finely tailored suits, chic skirts and fancy designations — a perfect picture of corporate India, but without the grey hair. On Friday, young MDs, VPs and filmmakers, representatives of the changing face of corporate India, got together to take part in the Hindustan Times Young India Forum. To discuss, naturally, the Budget presented by Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

As the FM read out the fiscal Budget — his fifth in a row — clad in a pristine white dhoti, these designer-clad corporate honchos chuckled, sighed, laughed and gave their perspective on one of the biggest events of the year in India.