Published in ET on April 29, 2010
Rishi V K
Three years ago, Joshua Bell, one of the best classical musicians in the world, walked into a busy Washington metro subway station in jeans, T-shirt and a baseball cap and started playing his violin just like any street musician.
In the next 45 minutes Bell performed some of the best compositions ever written. Free for all.
Yet, there was hardly any listener.
More than a thousand people passed by and just seven stopped to give him an ear. And only one person identified Bell who collected $32.17 for the performance. Just three days earlier he had full-house show at Boston Symphony Hall where a decent seat went for $100.
The metro stunt when some of the best music fell on nobody’s ear was initiated by Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten who used it to join the classic debate on beauty and highlight the frenetic pace of modern life. He got a Pulitzer for his article.
It could have happened anywhere. The response would not have been much different in Delhi or Mumbai. In fact, almost 20 years before Bell’s metro performance, rock star Bruce Springsteen once joined a street musician in Copenhagen to play a song. Not many people noticed him, either.
How come? It’s not that people are not interested in music. Some of those who passed by, completely ignoring Bell, may have been his fans. The US is after all the largest market for music, be it classical, rock, rap or live performance.
Yet, that day the superstar violinist was royally ignored. It’s not just life at the speed of light. People were busy, but they were in a hurry. In the video – it’s there on YouTube and Washington Post website — one can see many people strolling by without even noticing the musician.
In fact, there was a fairly long queue before a lottery machine in the station. People had to wait five to ten minutes for their turn. It might have been the most inactive 10 minutes of their day, yet nobody in the queue had time for a street musician. So what if he lends his soul to his music, they would rather listen to Joshua Bell in their iPod! Or, talk on their phone or chew on their nails.
Everybody was preoccupied. More in thoughts than in action. With the business of their lives; with hundreds of small and big tensions that make up their lives. From meeting an official deadline to picking up child from day care to booking a holiday to whatever, everybody is engrossed in their private tensions, their private lives, their private worlds.
Joshua Bell was alone in public world. And his music — loud and clear and beautiful — was there for everybody, to share and enjoy. Yet, very few got it.
The problem is with the system. It forces people to be on their own, to fend for themselves. It encourages selfishness and calls it competitiveness. It forces people to scramble for their lives and calls it fair play. The challenge is to amass maximum wealth.
Nobody is spared. Everybody is in a Formula One car, racing with everybody else. You are either a winner or a loser. Either way, you are alone, in your private, air-tight world.
It’s inhuman, yet this lifestyle was the most sought-after; at least then.
It was 2007, before the financial crisis rocked the world. Every country wanted to be the United States. Every people aspired for the American way of life — a lifestyle then president George Bush would not yet compromise.
And those people who walked through some of the best music with their ears shut are supposed to be among the luckiest, living the rest-of-the-world’s dream.
What is it that makes capitalism at the same time inhuman and romanticised? Why it is not challenged? Where are the world’s social philosophers? Are they talking alternatives? Why are their voices subdued?
Capitalism may or may not be the best system. But it is effective. And it’s selfish, like its successful practitioners.
Any person or idea that challenges it is labelled ‘communist’ or ‘loser’ or ‘unrealistic’ or whatever. These labels are assigned a negative connotation — a no-no zone for the smart and the hep.
Things could be changing though, however slightly. After the global crisis that felled once-deemed-invisible institutions such as Lehman Brothers and General Motors and forced a change in the American gas-guzzler way of life, there are more talks and action on sustainable growth, clean technology and regulated markets. They point to a less selfish, more human system.
There is no evidence that these changes and the saner voice of President Barack Obama have made Americans slow down a bit and keep their eyes and ears more open to the world around.
Perhaps it’s time Joshua Bell repeated his metro performance.
ends
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5870831.cms
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Work for Microsoft, fly to South Africa…
(An edited version of this was published in ET on May 22, 2010)
Online frauds show the moon to steal pennies
Rajiv Singh & Rishi V K
New Delhi
Dear Sunil C,
Virgin Atlantic is pleased to offer you a job in London. You will get a salary of 6,900 pounds per month plus family accommodation, free education for children, a brand new Toyota Camry, 15 days leave after every 90 working days and free flight tickets. To accept the offer, send a copy of your passport along with a demand draft of 1,000 pounds towards visa processing fee to Virgin.
Sender: Dr Williams Carter Lee, HR department, Virgin Atlantic London Extension. Email: virginatlantic@london.com, virgincareer@london.com
Sunil (name changed), a 38-year-old chartered accountant in Delhi, pinched himself before calling out to his wife Sonia.
A monthly salary of Rs 4.7 lakh! That’s more than four times what his current employer, a private internet firm, pays Sunil. That too, without even a telephonic interview, based on his profile at a placement portal.
It was April, but not the fool’s day.
Sunil checked out the UK airline’s website. He noted that the address, www.virgin-atlantic.com, was different from where the email had come from. Sure enough, the company's career site had a warning against job offer emails.
"It was embarrassing; Sonia had already broken the news to my parents and some friends before I realised it was a scam," says Sunil.
His offer had come from an online money laundering racket. One of many.
Such frauds are on the rise as they find easy preys to bogus job and lottery offers in a world where greed is inseparable from need.
Thousands of racketeers across the world are sending mails and calling up people on various pretexts to extract money and personal details such as credit card numbers and banking passwords and plunder crores of rupees.
Their attacks have intensified recently, fuelled by the growing use of internet and mobile phone as well as the general desperation of a global downturn that left millions jobless, mostly in the West.
In 2009, they are estimated to have duped 11.1 million Americans — almost 5% of its adult population — of $54 billion through bogus offers and identity theft, forcing regulators, banks and other institutions to spruce up the defence through warnings, denials, security alerts and most importantly mass awareness drives.
“The situation is really bad,” says Alpana Killawala, spokeswoman of the Reserve Bank of India.
The central bank will soon launch a television, print and internet campaign in 13 languages to spread awareness among people about such scams, she says. “We are in talks with TV channels for the slots and the campaign will be aired soon.”
It already runs a continuous ticker on its website, www.rbi.org.in, cautioning people of fictitious offers, lottery winnings and cheap fund offers.
Stealing You Softly
In this Age of Information, thieves don’t steal you at gunpoint; they make you happily give away money or key details of your bank account and credit card.
These scamsters are populated across the world, working in groups or on their own, creating websites and email addresses such as adidas@adidas.org that sounds official addresses of established institutions and shooting off job and lottery offers. Or, creating fictitious accounts and sending spam mails saying the recipient is the chosen one to inherit the assets of a millionaire with no family. Or, just calling up people pretending to be a bank executive calling to verify their personal details such as date of birth, address, internet banking password...
Around the same time as Sunil got his not-even-once-in-a-lifetime offer from Virgin Atlantic, Manish P, a software engineer working with a Delhi-based small company, got a much more believable email purportedly from Korean electronics maker Sansui Technologies India.
It was an invitation for the final interview for a Rs 2.5 lakh-plus job. He had to pay Rs 6,050 as surety before the company send him flight tickets and hotel booking details to attend the interview in New Delhi on May 14. (Imagine a Delhi-Delhi flight ticket.) The money was to be deposited in favour of Mr Ajay Kumar Gupta at Shivalik Mercantile Bank A/C no 169810100006001 latest by May 5.
Manish did not do it. Neither did Mike K, another software engineer working in Delhi, who received a similarly worded offer from Intex India. In this case, the surety amount of Rs 5,250 was to be deposited at EDC (Ernakulam District Cooperative) Bank A/C no 2489734535646 by April 7.
They were smart enough to check if the mail was genuine. After all, these companies were only a local call away for these Delhiites.
Suveer Kumar Gupta, CEO of Saharanpur (UP)-based Shivalik Mercantile Bank, denied any money transfer from the bank. “This email (fake job offer mail) is misusing our name and is detrimental to our good image and reputation,” he told ET. “We have already lodged a complaint with The Additional Commissioner of Police, Cyber Crimes Division, New Delhi," he added.
When contacted, C Bhanu, general manager of the Kochi-based bank, expressed shock that his bank is used by online frauds. “We are not at all aware of such incidents. It's shocking,” he said. “We will get the information published in newspapers so that people may become aware of such frauds,” he said.
Mr Gupta too said his bank is trying to spread awareness among customers to prevent any misuse.
Experts say these fraudsters use small banks to run such scams because it's easy for them to evade detection. “Most of the small banks in India don't have sufficient mechanism and technical knowhow to detect frauds of such scale,” says Mahesh Singh, a Delhi-based cyber crime analyst. “So, they become easy target.”
Also, it is easier to open and close accounts in smaller banks, experts say. Fly-by-night accounts. In fact, by the time ET contacted Shivalik Mercantile Bank and EDC Bank, the said accounts did not exist.
These fraudsters appear so genuine. They can issue certificates, letters and circulars on letterheads that look like that of the Reserve Bank of India or any other organisation, duly signed by senior officials, to make such offers look genuine. They provide telephone numbers and e-mail IDs that look genuine.
While multinational rackets mostly take bigger bets with big-dollar job offers and migration, smaller players are content with TV coupons and gift processing or shipping fee.
With the use of mobile phones spreading much faster than the use of the Internet, many fraudsters now reach their victims through the phone.
Easy Preys
An ET journalist recently got a missed call from a Pakistan number. When he returned the call, one Arjun Singh told him that he had won Rs 15 lakh lottery from Airtel, his mobile operator. Singh claimed he was at Airtel office in Mumbai, but hung up when asked why his Mumbai number carries Pakistan country code.
And there are those who call up behalf of banks and other service providers to “verify” your credit card, account and contact details. Only to steal your identity and money.
In the last two years, India lost more than Rs 115 crore to online banking frauds and the number of cases more than doubled last year, minister of state for finance Namo Narain Meena told the Rajya Sabha last week.
Many Indians are also falling for international lottery scams. The Reserve Bank of India has clarified several times that the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, prohibits sending money abroad for securing price money and awards or to participate in lottery and money circulation schemes. Yet, many people break the law, only to be cheated.
“When it comes to interacting safely online, the awareness level of Indian Web users is dramatically low,” says Rajiv Chadha, vice president of internet security service provider VeriSign.
Nine out of every 10 internet users in the country have experienced cyber threats, he says quoting a recent study commissioned by VeriSign. Yet, 83% of the people do not check if a website is genuine.
It’s this lack of awareness that helps the new-age goons expose the virtual reality that the cyber police is.
Lawmakers have yet to find ways to police the countless labyrinths of the cyber world.
“At present, the law is a toothless tiger against emerging cyber threats,” says Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court advocate and cyber law expert.
In India, the IT Act does not even cover such scams; they are considered cheating offence under the Indian Penal Code, which is bailable and easy to get away, he says.
More developed countries have stronger cyber laws, but they are unable to check such scams because racketeers can operate virtually from any part of the world.
As many as 11.1 million adults in the US lost $54 billion through identity theft last year, according to a recent study by Javelin Strategy & Research, an independent provider of research focused exclusively on financial services.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, recently said cybercrime is the third-highest priority for the intelligence agency after terrorism and counterintelligence.
The US Federal Trade Commission recently launched ‘Opeartion Bottom Dollar’ and the Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce last month ran a weeklong campaign, Online Offensive — Fighting Fraud Online.
Private companies such as mobile firms, banks and security service providers too are trying to alert their users against such scams through advertisements, messages and webpage postings.
While most companies have posted warning messages on their websites, very few are taking any initiative to combat the fraudsters and take them to the law. They leave it to the victims.
"If a member of the public has fallen victim to these sort of issues (bogus offers on behalf of the company) then we would advise them to report the matter to their local law enforcement authority," says Katie Francis, interim press officer at Virgin Atlantic Airways.
Cyber security experts say there is no way companies can go after scamsters because there is no end to it. Anybody can potentially run such a racket from any corner of the world.
So, it requires international cooperation to take them on. But, so far, there is no major international initiative to counter online fraud except for a European Commission (EC) plan to form an EU agency to tackle cybercrime.
Wake Up Call
While the stout bureaucrats take their own time to build a cyber defence, the agile scamsters have backed their superior technical knowhow with sharp marketing skills to create a deadly mix. They don’t miss out on big events.
Right now, they are feasting on the upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup football championship with offers of prizes, free tickets and stay for the biggest event of the world’s most popular game.
With the kickoff less than a month away, thousands of e-mails and phone messages are crowding inboxes, informing recipients that they have won substantial sums as lottery awarded by world soccer governing body FIFA and South Africa’s World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC), or brands associated with the tournament such as German sports goods maker Adidas.
FIFA has issued several media releases, starting from back in 2005, disowning such mails and messages. Adidas website carries a warning that it has nothing to do with adidas.org. "The Adidas Group would like to warn consumers that emails from adidas@adidas.org claiming that the recipient has won US$800,000 are fake," it reads.
They lure their victims with various offers, from jobs to free tickets for FIFA World Cup Football, and urge them to send visa charges or processing fees that could be anything from TV recharge coupons to tens of dollars in foreign exchange.
While multinational rackets mostly take bigger bets with big-dollar job offers and migration, smaller players are content with TV coupons and gift processing or shipping fee.
It is easy to fall for their tricks. Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, some months back admitted that he was one click away from sending his bank account information to phishers.
The only way to check them is to be alert. At an individual level.
“Remember, there are no free lunches. Do not believe in any unbelievable offer,” says Mr Duggal. "Any law comes into play only after the crime has been committed. So, the best thing to do is to exercise due diligence and caution."
Banks, mobile operators, job portals and other institutions such as ICICI Bank, Airtel and TimesJobs.com alert people against such scams through messages, media campaigns and sometimes through timely interventions.
The ET journalist earlier mentioned got a message from the phone operator warning against calling unknown number and sharing personal details, within hours of calling up the Pakistan number.
Yet, while almost every company is screaming caution, nobody seems to be listening.
According to VeriSign’s Rajiv Chadha, more than 60% of the internet users in India access the Web at least 4-6 times a week and many of them are using it for shopping and banking. But only 9% of the users are aware of visual cues such as the green address bar that signifies it is a secure site, according to the VeriSign survey conducted by IMRB among 5,000 Internet users across 10 cities in 2009.
It’s time to wake up.
"As long as you are alert, you can't be duped. It's only when you drop your caution and give in to the 'incredible' offer of the fraudster that the problem starts," says Vivek Madhukar, VP, TimesJobs.com, a job search site of the Times of India group.
ends
(http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/internet/Protect-yourself-from-fake-online-job-offers-and-lotteries/articleshow/5960181.cms)
Online frauds show the moon to steal pennies
Rajiv Singh & Rishi V K
New Delhi
Dear Sunil C,
Virgin Atlantic is pleased to offer you a job in London. You will get a salary of 6,900 pounds per month plus family accommodation, free education for children, a brand new Toyota Camry, 15 days leave after every 90 working days and free flight tickets. To accept the offer, send a copy of your passport along with a demand draft of 1,000 pounds towards visa processing fee to Virgin.
Sender: Dr Williams Carter Lee, HR department, Virgin Atlantic London Extension. Email: virginatlantic@london.com, virgincareer@london.com
Sunil (name changed), a 38-year-old chartered accountant in Delhi, pinched himself before calling out to his wife Sonia.
A monthly salary of Rs 4.7 lakh! That’s more than four times what his current employer, a private internet firm, pays Sunil. That too, without even a telephonic interview, based on his profile at a placement portal.
It was April, but not the fool’s day.
Sunil checked out the UK airline’s website. He noted that the address, www.virgin-atlantic.com, was different from where the email had come from. Sure enough, the company's career site had a warning against job offer emails.
"It was embarrassing; Sonia had already broken the news to my parents and some friends before I realised it was a scam," says Sunil.
His offer had come from an online money laundering racket. One of many.
Such frauds are on the rise as they find easy preys to bogus job and lottery offers in a world where greed is inseparable from need.
Thousands of racketeers across the world are sending mails and calling up people on various pretexts to extract money and personal details such as credit card numbers and banking passwords and plunder crores of rupees.
Their attacks have intensified recently, fuelled by the growing use of internet and mobile phone as well as the general desperation of a global downturn that left millions jobless, mostly in the West.
In 2009, they are estimated to have duped 11.1 million Americans — almost 5% of its adult population — of $54 billion through bogus offers and identity theft, forcing regulators, banks and other institutions to spruce up the defence through warnings, denials, security alerts and most importantly mass awareness drives.
“The situation is really bad,” says Alpana Killawala, spokeswoman of the Reserve Bank of India.
The central bank will soon launch a television, print and internet campaign in 13 languages to spread awareness among people about such scams, she says. “We are in talks with TV channels for the slots and the campaign will be aired soon.”
It already runs a continuous ticker on its website, www.rbi.org.in, cautioning people of fictitious offers, lottery winnings and cheap fund offers.
Stealing You Softly
In this Age of Information, thieves don’t steal you at gunpoint; they make you happily give away money or key details of your bank account and credit card.
These scamsters are populated across the world, working in groups or on their own, creating websites and email addresses such as adidas@adidas.org that sounds official addresses of established institutions and shooting off job and lottery offers. Or, creating fictitious accounts and sending spam mails saying the recipient is the chosen one to inherit the assets of a millionaire with no family. Or, just calling up people pretending to be a bank executive calling to verify their personal details such as date of birth, address, internet banking password...
Around the same time as Sunil got his not-even-once-in-a-lifetime offer from Virgin Atlantic, Manish P, a software engineer working with a Delhi-based small company, got a much more believable email purportedly from Korean electronics maker Sansui Technologies India.
It was an invitation for the final interview for a Rs 2.5 lakh-plus job. He had to pay Rs 6,050 as surety before the company send him flight tickets and hotel booking details to attend the interview in New Delhi on May 14. (Imagine a Delhi-Delhi flight ticket.) The money was to be deposited in favour of Mr Ajay Kumar Gupta at Shivalik Mercantile Bank A/C no 169810100006001 latest by May 5.
Manish did not do it. Neither did Mike K, another software engineer working in Delhi, who received a similarly worded offer from Intex India. In this case, the surety amount of Rs 5,250 was to be deposited at EDC (Ernakulam District Cooperative) Bank A/C no 2489734535646 by April 7.
They were smart enough to check if the mail was genuine. After all, these companies were only a local call away for these Delhiites.
Suveer Kumar Gupta, CEO of Saharanpur (UP)-based Shivalik Mercantile Bank, denied any money transfer from the bank. “This email (fake job offer mail) is misusing our name and is detrimental to our good image and reputation,” he told ET. “We have already lodged a complaint with The Additional Commissioner of Police, Cyber Crimes Division, New Delhi," he added.
When contacted, C Bhanu, general manager of the Kochi-based bank, expressed shock that his bank is used by online frauds. “We are not at all aware of such incidents. It's shocking,” he said. “We will get the information published in newspapers so that people may become aware of such frauds,” he said.
Mr Gupta too said his bank is trying to spread awareness among customers to prevent any misuse.
Experts say these fraudsters use small banks to run such scams because it's easy for them to evade detection. “Most of the small banks in India don't have sufficient mechanism and technical knowhow to detect frauds of such scale,” says Mahesh Singh, a Delhi-based cyber crime analyst. “So, they become easy target.”
Also, it is easier to open and close accounts in smaller banks, experts say. Fly-by-night accounts. In fact, by the time ET contacted Shivalik Mercantile Bank and EDC Bank, the said accounts did not exist.
These fraudsters appear so genuine. They can issue certificates, letters and circulars on letterheads that look like that of the Reserve Bank of India or any other organisation, duly signed by senior officials, to make such offers look genuine. They provide telephone numbers and e-mail IDs that look genuine.
While multinational rackets mostly take bigger bets with big-dollar job offers and migration, smaller players are content with TV coupons and gift processing or shipping fee.
With the use of mobile phones spreading much faster than the use of the Internet, many fraudsters now reach their victims through the phone.
Easy Preys
An ET journalist recently got a missed call from a Pakistan number. When he returned the call, one Arjun Singh told him that he had won Rs 15 lakh lottery from Airtel, his mobile operator. Singh claimed he was at Airtel office in Mumbai, but hung up when asked why his Mumbai number carries Pakistan country code.
And there are those who call up behalf of banks and other service providers to “verify” your credit card, account and contact details. Only to steal your identity and money.
In the last two years, India lost more than Rs 115 crore to online banking frauds and the number of cases more than doubled last year, minister of state for finance Namo Narain Meena told the Rajya Sabha last week.
Many Indians are also falling for international lottery scams. The Reserve Bank of India has clarified several times that the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, prohibits sending money abroad for securing price money and awards or to participate in lottery and money circulation schemes. Yet, many people break the law, only to be cheated.
“When it comes to interacting safely online, the awareness level of Indian Web users is dramatically low,” says Rajiv Chadha, vice president of internet security service provider VeriSign.
Nine out of every 10 internet users in the country have experienced cyber threats, he says quoting a recent study commissioned by VeriSign. Yet, 83% of the people do not check if a website is genuine.
It’s this lack of awareness that helps the new-age goons expose the virtual reality that the cyber police is.
Lawmakers have yet to find ways to police the countless labyrinths of the cyber world.
“At present, the law is a toothless tiger against emerging cyber threats,” says Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court advocate and cyber law expert.
In India, the IT Act does not even cover such scams; they are considered cheating offence under the Indian Penal Code, which is bailable and easy to get away, he says.
More developed countries have stronger cyber laws, but they are unable to check such scams because racketeers can operate virtually from any part of the world.
As many as 11.1 million adults in the US lost $54 billion through identity theft last year, according to a recent study by Javelin Strategy & Research, an independent provider of research focused exclusively on financial services.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, recently said cybercrime is the third-highest priority for the intelligence agency after terrorism and counterintelligence.
The US Federal Trade Commission recently launched ‘Opeartion Bottom Dollar’ and the Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce last month ran a weeklong campaign, Online Offensive — Fighting Fraud Online.
Private companies such as mobile firms, banks and security service providers too are trying to alert their users against such scams through advertisements, messages and webpage postings.
While most companies have posted warning messages on their websites, very few are taking any initiative to combat the fraudsters and take them to the law. They leave it to the victims.
"If a member of the public has fallen victim to these sort of issues (bogus offers on behalf of the company) then we would advise them to report the matter to their local law enforcement authority," says Katie Francis, interim press officer at Virgin Atlantic Airways.
Cyber security experts say there is no way companies can go after scamsters because there is no end to it. Anybody can potentially run such a racket from any corner of the world.
So, it requires international cooperation to take them on. But, so far, there is no major international initiative to counter online fraud except for a European Commission (EC) plan to form an EU agency to tackle cybercrime.
Wake Up Call
While the stout bureaucrats take their own time to build a cyber defence, the agile scamsters have backed their superior technical knowhow with sharp marketing skills to create a deadly mix. They don’t miss out on big events.
Right now, they are feasting on the upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup football championship with offers of prizes, free tickets and stay for the biggest event of the world’s most popular game.
With the kickoff less than a month away, thousands of e-mails and phone messages are crowding inboxes, informing recipients that they have won substantial sums as lottery awarded by world soccer governing body FIFA and South Africa’s World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC), or brands associated with the tournament such as German sports goods maker Adidas.
FIFA has issued several media releases, starting from back in 2005, disowning such mails and messages. Adidas website carries a warning that it has nothing to do with adidas.org. "The Adidas Group would like to warn consumers that emails from adidas@adidas.org claiming that the recipient has won US$800,000 are fake," it reads.
They lure their victims with various offers, from jobs to free tickets for FIFA World Cup Football, and urge them to send visa charges or processing fees that could be anything from TV recharge coupons to tens of dollars in foreign exchange.
While multinational rackets mostly take bigger bets with big-dollar job offers and migration, smaller players are content with TV coupons and gift processing or shipping fee.
It is easy to fall for their tricks. Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, some months back admitted that he was one click away from sending his bank account information to phishers.
The only way to check them is to be alert. At an individual level.
“Remember, there are no free lunches. Do not believe in any unbelievable offer,” says Mr Duggal. "Any law comes into play only after the crime has been committed. So, the best thing to do is to exercise due diligence and caution."
Banks, mobile operators, job portals and other institutions such as ICICI Bank, Airtel and TimesJobs.com alert people against such scams through messages, media campaigns and sometimes through timely interventions.
The ET journalist earlier mentioned got a message from the phone operator warning against calling unknown number and sharing personal details, within hours of calling up the Pakistan number.
Yet, while almost every company is screaming caution, nobody seems to be listening.
According to VeriSign’s Rajiv Chadha, more than 60% of the internet users in India access the Web at least 4-6 times a week and many of them are using it for shopping and banking. But only 9% of the users are aware of visual cues such as the green address bar that signifies it is a secure site, according to the VeriSign survey conducted by IMRB among 5,000 Internet users across 10 cities in 2009.
It’s time to wake up.
"As long as you are alert, you can't be duped. It's only when you drop your caution and give in to the 'incredible' offer of the fraudster that the problem starts," says Vivek Madhukar, VP, TimesJobs.com, a job search site of the Times of India group.
ends
(http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/internet/Protect-yourself-from-fake-online-job-offers-and-lotteries/articleshow/5960181.cms)
Sex in God's Own Country
(Published in The Economic Times on Jan 14, 2010)
Rishi V K
The recent arrest of a local politician for alleged immoral trafficking has catapulted into one of the most talked-about events in Kerala. The person, Rajmohan Unnithan, a member of All India Congress Committee (AICC), has been suspended from his party and barred from travelling outside Kerala by a local court since his arrest in the night of December 20.
Sounds pretty normal. What is not normal is the way this small-time Malayalam film actor was taken into police custody and charged with such a serious offence.
According to various media reports, local activists of DYFI, the youth wing of ruling CPI-M, and the People’s Democratic Party of Abdul Nasser Madani, broke into a house at Manjeri in Malappuram district to find Unnithan was with a woman. They accused the two grown-ups of immoral activity, took their photographs and held public hearing for hours before handling them over to the police. Unnithan and his 32-year-old female companion, a former Congress Sewa Dal member, were subjected to medical tests and had to spend a night in the police station before being granted bail by the Manjeri first class judicial magistrate the next day.
All this for being in the same house?! Since that day, Unnithan has been using all his time, energy and oratory skills to explain he was set up and that he had no sexual relationship with the woman in question. Most commentators, bloggers and public at large are debating what the two grown-ups were doing in the house and trying to guess what comment from this otherwise small fry in politics may have led to such a trap. (Unnithan is known for his sharp and often nasty remarks. For example, when Congress invited K Karunakaran to rejoin the party, this is how he explained why the former chief minister’s son Muraleedharan was not invited: “Vada comes free with masala dosa in Udupi hotels, you don’t need to order separately.”) His own party, Congress, has ordered a probe into the incident.
Very few people in the state have come out to say the real issue was about violation of privacy and that consensual sex has nothing to do with illegal trafficking. One prominent person who did it, writer Paul Zacharia, has allegedly been roughed up by DYFI activists for doing so.
That’s God’s Own Country. A paradox. It leaves the rest of the country far behind in social indicators such as literacy, healthcare and social awareness, yet Kerala remains one of the most backward places in man-woman relationship.
At the beautiful Varkala beach in south Kerala, Indians are not allowed to bathe in the main beach. It’s kept exclusively for foreigners. There’s no need to argue with the security guards or local police. Just watching how sensitive sun-bathing foreigners are to local stares is good enough. At Kovalam’s famed Hawah Beach too, it’s hard to spot brown skin in a sea of bare-bodied sunbathers.
That may sound like conservative, hinterland India. But Kerala is progressive. It believes in equality. It voted the first democratically elected Communist government into power. It has implemented land reforms. Here, girl children are taken care of, they are well-educated, confident and most of them work for a living, many outside the state.
Yet, here, even young husbands and wives are reluctant to share the same seat in local buses and college boys and girls rarely mingle outside campuses. It’s next to impossible to find a local woman in a bar or see a woman travel alone after sunset.
Despite all its progressive claims and the ability of its people to adapt to different conditions around the world — it’s said that there are more Malayalis outside the state than within — Kerala remains a male-dominated society that’s caught in a moral backwardness. Only exceptions could be among the youth in cities like Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram.
Here, only man is human. He errs. He drinks and robs, and sometimes kills. But woman is beyond all that. She’s a goddess, or furniture, or a machine. She’s incapable of action. She can’t sin. She can’t live. Here’s the most Catholic society in the world. It lives in a false morality that stands between man and woman, increasing their distance and distrust, and turning people into perverts. There are numerous sex scandals and cases of gang-rapes. Yet, everybody is moral policing.
Sex is a sin in the God’s Own Country.
Soccer Mom
Published in The Economic Times on Dec 28, 2009
Rishi V K
It’s a winter evening. There’s a chill in the air. The big orange sun has packed up its rays and is set to disappear beyond the metro station on the other side of the small playground. Little Soham is not aware and not bothered. His eyes are fixed on another big orange ball as he starts warming up his legs with nimble steps, his body bent forward, fists clinched, his loose red shorts barely visible under an oversized white jersey. So are the other 25-30 pairs of eyes on the playground as his playmates chant “Soham, Soham, Soham…”. The lanky Nigerian coach whistles. Little Soham runs in. His thin, fragile legs moving in perfect tandem; no slowing down, no last minute adjustment, he goes through the shot as fluently as Lionel Messi. The goalkeeper, double his size and age, jumps and pushes the ball over the crossbar. Soham’s tiny hands rush to his head in complete dejection as the crowd sighs “ooh”. Nobody notices a metro train, a new attraction in this part of the city, passing by or the sun vanishing or even the small mount of mosquitoes above their heads. Even the goalkeeper looks sorry.
Little Soham, three feet tall and five years old, is a football prodigy. He started playing the game when he was three-and-half and spends more than eight hours everyday on football, on the field or practising in the living room or watching European club matches on TV. He can already do tricks that most of his elder playmates can’t, and is easily the star on this ground.
“If he had scored he would have gone sliding,” says Anju Abbott with a wide grin that bares her gums. She is all excited about Soham. Everybody else is equally excited about Anju. That’s because, if Soham or any other of the close to 50 children getting trained here goes on to become professional footballers, this slender unassuming housewife will be one of the first persons they would remember.
Anju is the one that gave Delhi’s Mayur Vihar its first soccer coaching centre where two Nigerian professional footballers are taking turns to teach the basics of the game to these children. Most people living in this populous middle class area in East Delhi may not even suspect the existence of any such thing.
“I came to know about it from Soham’s aunt Neeti Rajeev, who is a friend of Anju,” says Naveen Varshneya, Soham’s father, who is determined to help his only son become a footballer if his craze for the beautiful game stays alive. But Naveen just can’t imagine what he would have done if the ‘Black Tigers Soccer Club’ was not there in the neighbourhood. Most parents who send their children to Black Tigers, which is still waiting for the Delhi Soccer Association to register its name, would not have considered giving soccer training to their wards if not for Anju.
So how come a woman who herself never played football initiate a coaching centre? “Sports was always my passion,” she says, adjusting the hood of her maroon pullover before running away to kick back a ball to the play area. She is hyper-active, clapping and cheering kids, taking part in the drill, showing kids how to do this and that, never sitting or leaning or even relaxing as she talks in short spurts. Clearly, she is a natural athlete.
Yet, Anju never became a professional sportswoman, mainly because her parents wouldn’t allow her to pursue sports after school. She used to take part in every sports event in her neighbourhood school in Karol Bagh, where she grew up as the third and youngest child of a middle class businessman. “Nobody gave me any encouragement, but somehow I managed to keep up with my jogging and yoga,” says Anju.
All that changed with her marriage to Sandeep Abbott, a chartered accountant who runs his own business of sales promotion and who happened to share her passion for sports. “We started going for swimming and jogging together,” she says. Her tryst with football, however, started as a mother.
Some five years ago, Anju and Sandeep’s only son Pushkin, then seven years old, fell in love with his football and wanted proper coaching. The Abbotts were keen to fulfill his wishes, but realised that there was no soccer training facility anywhere nearby. Cricket was the only popular sport. “We tried to persuade him to learn cricket but he said nothing doing,” says Anju.
For the next two years or so, Anju and Pushkin spent a lot of their time in autos and buses, first going to Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium in Delhi and then to the Noida stadium in Uttar Pradesh. “Everyday we would go at around 3.30 as soon as he came back from school and by the time we reached home, it would be 9 in the night. But we never missed a session.” While her son trained, Anju would jog. The shift to Noida after about a year in the Delhi stadium improved timings slightly, but the Abbotts were not satisfied with the facilities or the sessions.
Then one day, they met a couple of Nigerian players who had come to the stadium to play a game for a local club. The Abbotts found them good and asked them if they could coach Pushkin. A series of meetings followed, covering everything from immigration status to fees and a deal was struck. The two Nigerians — Decka and Kalechi — would take turns to train the boy for 2-3 hours at a nearby ground five days a week.
Their search for a ground led them to a ghost of a playground with overgrown grass, weeds and trash on uneven surface facing the new Samachar Metro Station. The Abbotts spent their own money to clean and level the field, lay grass, repair the goalposts and the pipeline to water the ground. The field was ready in a couple of weeks and training started.
That was three years ago. Within 10 days, a group of children approached the coaches wanting to join them. “We were not very keen at first, but then we thought we should. After all, we had a lot of difficulties ourselves,” says Anju, who also enjoys cooking and reading.
Today, there are about 50 young members aged between 5 and 16 in the Black Tigers Club, which has already won several trophies in various under 16, under 10 and under 7 tournaments. George and Daniel, also Nigerians, have taken over as coaches as Decka and Kalechi have returned to their homeland. “All these guys are very committed and on most days parents have to tell them ‘let’s pack up for the day’,” says Anju.
Her own drive is stronger though, and drill tougher. She gets the park maintained and watered and runs to the Delhi Development Authority for sanctions for everything, besides supervising the training.
“Black Tiger is a story of social entrepreneurship by a woman who is a true mentor and her efforts are paying off,” says Naveen Varshneya. The club charges small contributions from the parents every month, but the Abbotts have no plans to make it a profitable business venture. At least not yet.
“No other feeling can match the satisfaction we get after playing with these kids for three hours,” she says, adding that Sandeep joins them every Sunday. “There’s a lot more that needs to be done in terms of facilities,” says Anju about future plans. But she has no set targets or fixed plans. After all, for Black Tigers, nothing was planned. Everything just fell into place.
“This was not a dream. Some things we get without any dream,” she says, while greeting Naveen with a wide grin and a hand wave. It’s almost dark and yet Soham is angry that his father has arrived to take him home. “Not now, not now,” cries the little striker, who is sporting a pair of extra-small boots specially made in Jalandhar and procured at no extra cost by a local sports goods shop owner overwhelmed by the boy’s passion.
He doesn’t want to meet new people and shake hands. All he wants is his father’s nod to play on. Once he gets it, he rushes back to his coach and playmates. “He is only concerned about the ball and the goal, nothing else matters,” says Anju, baring her gums and her bundle of energy and passion.
endsMonday, May 16, 2011
India to be one of beer's biggest markets: Carlsberg CEO
Published in ET on Oct 6, 2010
Jorgen Buhl Rasmussen loves chilled Carlsberg beer on a sunny summer day like this. He is lean and tall; he has green eyes and no beer belly. Meet the president and CEO of Carlsberg Group, the world's fourth largest brewer with brands such as Carlsberg, Jacobsen, Tuborg and Batlika. Reflecting on India from his office high in the Carlsberg headquarters with spectacular views of Copenhagen city and the sea, Mr Rasmussen says it will be one of the biggest beer markets in the long term. And the 55-year-old CEO is confident that Carlsberg will be one of the top competitors in India when it happens. Among the artifacts and wall-hangings in his office room, dominated by a monitor displaying latest movements in global financial markets, is a decorative axe that he calls his budget tool. He says he will use it if the CFO comes to him with a quarterly loss. The axe is yet to be stained although the Danish brewer had some tough time coping with global recession that came immediately after it acquired Scottish & Newcastle along with Heineken for about $15 billion in January 2008. But the company seems to have overcome the tough days and reported a better-than-expected net profit of about $560 million in the first half of 2010. Mr Rasmussen, who returned to his hometown Copenhagen in 2006 to Carlsberg after living in London for 14 years, talks about Carlsberg, beer, India and Indian food in a freewheeling interview. Excerpts:
In one of your recent interviews, you said Carlsberg will focus growth through purchases in China and the rest of Asia. Is India in the picture as well? What's your growth strategy?
If you take Carlsberg as a group, it has changed in the last 3-4 years. Especially after we did the Scottish & Newcastle acquisition in 2008, we became much more international and much more global. We have big business in Western Europe and in Eastern Europe, particularly Russia and Kazakhstan. Also we have a good platform in Asia, in markets like Malaysia where we are market leaders, and we are strong in Hong Kong, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos. We are very strong in the western part of China where we have close to 60% of market. We have more than 20 breweries in China. India is another place where we see a long-term big strategic opportunity. And Vietnam is another big strategic opportunity.
So often, when we think about Asia, that's our growth platform. Western Europe is a mature, more stable marketplace, while Eastern Europe is a growing marketplace. For the future, Asia will be where we will make most of our investments. And if we acquire, it will be most likely out there because we see lot of potential there. And within Asia, its primarily China and Vietnam, and if we talk more long-term, also India.
You have visited India a couple of times recently. It consumes less beer than most other markets. What makes India different?
Beer consumption in India is one of the lowest in the world. It is just about one or two litres per capita a year while a lot of markets in Asia consume at least 20 litres per capita. In some places like eastern China – Shanghai and Beijing – it's 80 litres per capita, like in Western Europe. So it's very low in India still.
But globally, when we look at history, we often talk about market clusters. There are beer clusters such as northern Europe where many years back, beer was an important part of life. So, in those markets, we generally see beer coming down and wine growing, taking share from beer. Then there are wine clusters like Italy, Spain and France where we often see beer taking share from wine. And then we have the spirit markets like Russia, China and partly India where over time I am pretty sure that lower alcoholic drinks like wine and beer will start take some share from spirits.
That's why India in the longer term is extremely interesting. Because beer should be growing and consumption should go up. And then you have more than one billion people and a lot of growth in the economy. There are more and more middle class consumers in India too. So, over time, it's a very interesting market.
So, when do you see India turning into a big beer market?
We are already investing quite a lot in India. We have four breweries there and we are now building the fifth in Andhra Pradesh. Since consumption is still very low, it will take longer before it becomes a significant market. But we are investing now and we are building the business platform now. So we have the presence to hopefully (benefit) at the point of time when we see the category show some excitement in terms of faster growth. Beer is already growing faster than spirits, at around 10-15% a year.
Tell us about Carlsberg in India and its competition, particularly after UB's tieup with Heineken.
We are growing faster than the market, but we are still very small. In the bigger picture, United Breweries is so big. We started in 2007 and we are still building the business. We are focusing on certain regions, now mainly up in the north and west of India, and not trying to cover the whole of India. We are growing in the regions where we are focused and in some regions we have very nice market shares. But we have a lot more to do. It will take time and investments. But we are confident that with the brands we have and what we have done elsewhere, we can strengthen and build the platform out there and be one of — I don't know how many — but if you see the big markets, it could anywhere from two to five players that are really competing in a market.
In India, I am sure there will be fierce competition like any other big market. And UB is getting together with Heineken. So it's just about being smarter, better and having better beer, which we have in the Tuborg and Carlsberg brands. So we are confident. And we have a strong team out there who know what they need to do. But you have to be patient, especially when you build business in markets like India and China. Strategy is the easy part in building a business; the difficult part is execution. In our case, it's about making sure the 45,000 people we have around the world know and do what they need to do.
But India is complicated. Especially in a category like beer. Every state has their own taxes and duties and it is very hard to ship or produce beer in one state and sell in another state because on the bottles you need different texts and labels for each state. It means you have to have a lot of breweries to cover the whole of India. So it's not a very efficient place the way it's structured today from a category point of view. Of course we hope at some point in time there will be a national duty system, like the way they are trying to introduce a common GST.
You project a green image in Tuborg advertisements. Are you sure this association works in markets like India where concerns about environmental issues are relatively low?
We do try to be responsible when it comes environment and those issues. But the green positioning of Tuborg is part of the whole concept of the brand in every market around the globe. We call it Green fest. It's for young people having a good time. The bottle is very clear green colour. And in a lot of markets, including India, we do Green Music festivals. So, it's less about environment and more about music, fun, party...
So, when are you bringing in your other products such as say, Batlika, Europe's largest selling beer?
We will not launch a lot of new products. Yes, we will launch some new ones. But I strongly believe that you need to be focused in your business. And when you are building a business, first build what you have in place. Our portfolio in India has Carlsberg in the super premium segment, Palone strong beer, which is a big part of the Indian market, Tuborg as a normal kind of lager beer and then we have just launched Tuborg Strong, which is showing some very interesting developments. It seems to be liked a lot by consumers.
We want to build these before you start launching just another brand and another brand. Because they all need to be supported and communicated. Consumers and customers need to understand why this and why not that one instead. So all the other products can come a lot later, if at all. Now it's Tuborg, Carlsberg and Palone.
India is known to be a price sensitive market. What's your pricing strategy there? Are you working on tight margins?
It's a balance. As I said to you, we are not making money at this point in time. India is an investment story. So the margins in India at the moment cannot cover all our investments and spending. But it's about getting this balance. And every time you launch a product, you have to do some price sensitivity analysis to see at this price point how much you can sell and at this price point how much, and where do you find the best balance. But, as a strategy for business, I will say just going for volumes does not work. Because you can easily get a lot of volume, but if you cannot make money by selling a lot, why do it? So we have to get the balance right between getting volumes and also value margin. You may have to be some time a little aggressive to make some penetration and expand distribution.
Not very aggressive. If you take Tuborg and Carlsberg, they are priced right. Palone is at the market level. But we are not very aggressive in pricing. This is a lot more about building distribution, building brands and building consumer and customer loyalty.
Tell us what you observe about Indian beer drinkers. Are they generally loyal to brands, or do they shuffle around, checking out new ones?
They are fairly loyal. Those who drink strong beer, tend to stick to strong beer. A lot of young people, the younger generation, aspire to drink the normal, light beer. But the older guys, the middle-aged people, tend to stick to strong beer. Maybe they try a couple of brands but they don't move around all the time, so they are fairly loyal. That's why you have to get them to try your product. Hopefully, they will like it and become loyal to your brand. That's the game of marketing. It's about first get them to try, and then if you have a quality product you will believe that a lot of consumers like what you are selling and then they start taking to your brand. So quality is very important for Carlsberg, ever since J C Jacobsen founded it back in 1847. This we believe helps us sometimes get new consumers when they try our different brands.
Can you share any numbers in terms of investments in India?
It's significant. We are not making money in India; we are investing for the future. We have four breweries and the fifth on is coming up. We have a big sales organisation and are employing a number of people. We also have to invest in our brands. So it's not a profit business at this point in time. And there are lots of components. Unlike in many other markets, it takes components five to 10 years or even more sometimes to get to a state where they can make a profit in India. In most markets it does not take more than three years.
If you look into the future, which countries do you expect to be the largest beer markets in, say, 2020?
It will be more or less the same as now. In the next five, 10 or 15 years, I don't expect India to be in the top five markets for beer. The consumption is still too low to get to that level. So we are looking at markets like Russia, the US and Brazil to be big markets in the beer category in five or 10 years' time. China is also very big.
But India will be bigger and bigger and you can imagine if consumption is barely one litre today, it will be 10 or 15 litres in 10 years' time. With more than a billion people, that's big. So I believe India is a very big market for Carlsberg in the long term and it's extremely important to have a strong presence there.
And what we are doing in India is similar to what we did in Russia, which is now the biggest market for us, bringing 40% plus of our global earnings. There, we started with a number of breweries in one part of Russia. Now we have the company across Russia, with a strong infrastructure. That's kind of a dream scenario that we would like to repeat in many places where you start in one corner of a big market. China, for example. We did not try to cover China to begin with. We started in western China and we are still primarily there. We sell only the Carlsberg brand across China. We own a lot of local brands in the Xinjian region, Gansu and those places, where we have local brands. And on top of that, we build international brands. In these markets of western China, there are about 130 million people and we have close to 60% market share. Then we will slowly penetrate into central and eastern China.
In India, we have started off in the north. We have started building a base and if it goes as we would like it to go, we will start strengthening and expanding towards other parts.
But, unlike Russia and China, you don't have many local brands in India?
Well, we see Palone as a 100% local brand. Carlsberg never gives out information about potential buys. But I can tell you that we are looking for opportunities all the time.
About your personal move back to Copenhagen from London and to Carlsberg from Gillette...what do you miss and have you gained?
I miss my two children, two boys, who still live in the UK and probably will continue to live there. They were only four and six when I moved to the UK and now they are 21 and 23. In Gillette, although I lived in England, I worked in different places. First I was in charge of northern Europe, and from 2000 onwards it was Eastern Europe, Africa, Middle East and India. I really enjoyed this exposure to many different cultures.
As a leader and as a human being, one learns a lot from getting exposed to different cultures and understands a little more about maybe why they think and do what they do in some Middle East countries versus in India versus Russia. That has helped me a lot on a job like this — of running an international company. I think I better understand why Russians are the way they are or why we do the way we do in Vietnam or in Denmark.
Also, London is a very international place. They have everything. Probably it's the best place for Indian restaurants outside India.
When I left Denmark, Carlsberg was not on my priority list to join. Because I felt in the 1990s and 80s it was primarily a Nordic company and was a much more production-driven company. It changed a lot during the period I was away. So when I was approached, this company was much more international, much more brand focused and I still saw lot of opportunity in terms of making it more commercial and more global. And at the same time, Procter & Gamble and Gillette were merging. So I saw it as a great opportunity.
Running a beer business, because of the category, is a fun business. You are selling something that people enjoy and often it is about fun, social life and having a good time. That also influences the culture in the company. So a lot of people in Carlsberg have a lot of passion for the business, for the brands. And that is always a very nice starting point if you want to have success and a lot of engagement in the organisation.
Now an easy one: what's your favourite drink?
It does differ. If it's with a meal, then it depends on the food you have. We have specialty beer...darker beer, stronger beer. Certainly with Indian food, I would like heavy beer. But if it's a hot summer day in Denmark, I love having a cold, chilled Carlsberg. So it depends on the situation.
So you like Indian food?
I love it. I like spicy food but when I have it I start sweating. But I love it. At home, I always have a lot of spice, every night. So if I order Indian food, I tend to order very spicy stuff. Then I start sweating, but I like it.
Jorgen Buhl Rasmussen loves chilled Carlsberg beer on a sunny summer day like this. He is lean and tall; he has green eyes and no beer belly. Meet the president and CEO of Carlsberg Group, the world's fourth largest brewer with brands such as Carlsberg, Jacobsen, Tuborg and Batlika. Reflecting on India from his office high in the Carlsberg headquarters with spectacular views of Copenhagen city and the sea, Mr Rasmussen says it will be one of the biggest beer markets in the long term. And the 55-year-old CEO is confident that Carlsberg will be one of the top competitors in India when it happens. Among the artifacts and wall-hangings in his office room, dominated by a monitor displaying latest movements in global financial markets, is a decorative axe that he calls his budget tool. He says he will use it if the CFO comes to him with a quarterly loss. The axe is yet to be stained although the Danish brewer had some tough time coping with global recession that came immediately after it acquired Scottish & Newcastle along with Heineken for about $15 billion in January 2008. But the company seems to have overcome the tough days and reported a better-than-expected net profit of about $560 million in the first half of 2010. Mr Rasmussen, who returned to his hometown Copenhagen in 2006 to Carlsberg after living in London for 14 years, talks about Carlsberg, beer, India and Indian food in a freewheeling interview. Excerpts:
In one of your recent interviews, you said Carlsberg will focus growth through purchases in China and the rest of Asia. Is India in the picture as well? What's your growth strategy?
If you take Carlsberg as a group, it has changed in the last 3-4 years. Especially after we did the Scottish & Newcastle acquisition in 2008, we became much more international and much more global. We have big business in Western Europe and in Eastern Europe, particularly Russia and Kazakhstan. Also we have a good platform in Asia, in markets like Malaysia where we are market leaders, and we are strong in Hong Kong, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos. We are very strong in the western part of China where we have close to 60% of market. We have more than 20 breweries in China. India is another place where we see a long-term big strategic opportunity. And Vietnam is another big strategic opportunity.
So often, when we think about Asia, that's our growth platform. Western Europe is a mature, more stable marketplace, while Eastern Europe is a growing marketplace. For the future, Asia will be where we will make most of our investments. And if we acquire, it will be most likely out there because we see lot of potential there. And within Asia, its primarily China and Vietnam, and if we talk more long-term, also India.
You have visited India a couple of times recently. It consumes less beer than most other markets. What makes India different?
Beer consumption in India is one of the lowest in the world. It is just about one or two litres per capita a year while a lot of markets in Asia consume at least 20 litres per capita. In some places like eastern China – Shanghai and Beijing – it's 80 litres per capita, like in Western Europe. So it's very low in India still.
But globally, when we look at history, we often talk about market clusters. There are beer clusters such as northern Europe where many years back, beer was an important part of life. So, in those markets, we generally see beer coming down and wine growing, taking share from beer. Then there are wine clusters like Italy, Spain and France where we often see beer taking share from wine. And then we have the spirit markets like Russia, China and partly India where over time I am pretty sure that lower alcoholic drinks like wine and beer will start take some share from spirits.
That's why India in the longer term is extremely interesting. Because beer should be growing and consumption should go up. And then you have more than one billion people and a lot of growth in the economy. There are more and more middle class consumers in India too. So, over time, it's a very interesting market.
So, when do you see India turning into a big beer market?
We are already investing quite a lot in India. We have four breweries there and we are now building the fifth in Andhra Pradesh. Since consumption is still very low, it will take longer before it becomes a significant market. But we are investing now and we are building the business platform now. So we have the presence to hopefully (benefit) at the point of time when we see the category show some excitement in terms of faster growth. Beer is already growing faster than spirits, at around 10-15% a year.
Tell us about Carlsberg in India and its competition, particularly after UB's tieup with Heineken.
We are growing faster than the market, but we are still very small. In the bigger picture, United Breweries is so big. We started in 2007 and we are still building the business. We are focusing on certain regions, now mainly up in the north and west of India, and not trying to cover the whole of India. We are growing in the regions where we are focused and in some regions we have very nice market shares. But we have a lot more to do. It will take time and investments. But we are confident that with the brands we have and what we have done elsewhere, we can strengthen and build the platform out there and be one of — I don't know how many — but if you see the big markets, it could anywhere from two to five players that are really competing in a market.
In India, I am sure there will be fierce competition like any other big market. And UB is getting together with Heineken. So it's just about being smarter, better and having better beer, which we have in the Tuborg and Carlsberg brands. So we are confident. And we have a strong team out there who know what they need to do. But you have to be patient, especially when you build business in markets like India and China. Strategy is the easy part in building a business; the difficult part is execution. In our case, it's about making sure the 45,000 people we have around the world know and do what they need to do.
But India is complicated. Especially in a category like beer. Every state has their own taxes and duties and it is very hard to ship or produce beer in one state and sell in another state because on the bottles you need different texts and labels for each state. It means you have to have a lot of breweries to cover the whole of India. So it's not a very efficient place the way it's structured today from a category point of view. Of course we hope at some point in time there will be a national duty system, like the way they are trying to introduce a common GST.
You project a green image in Tuborg advertisements. Are you sure this association works in markets like India where concerns about environmental issues are relatively low?
We do try to be responsible when it comes environment and those issues. But the green positioning of Tuborg is part of the whole concept of the brand in every market around the globe. We call it Green fest. It's for young people having a good time. The bottle is very clear green colour. And in a lot of markets, including India, we do Green Music festivals. So, it's less about environment and more about music, fun, party...
So, when are you bringing in your other products such as say, Batlika, Europe's largest selling beer?
We will not launch a lot of new products. Yes, we will launch some new ones. But I strongly believe that you need to be focused in your business. And when you are building a business, first build what you have in place. Our portfolio in India has Carlsberg in the super premium segment, Palone strong beer, which is a big part of the Indian market, Tuborg as a normal kind of lager beer and then we have just launched Tuborg Strong, which is showing some very interesting developments. It seems to be liked a lot by consumers.
We want to build these before you start launching just another brand and another brand. Because they all need to be supported and communicated. Consumers and customers need to understand why this and why not that one instead. So all the other products can come a lot later, if at all. Now it's Tuborg, Carlsberg and Palone.
India is known to be a price sensitive market. What's your pricing strategy there? Are you working on tight margins?
It's a balance. As I said to you, we are not making money at this point in time. India is an investment story. So the margins in India at the moment cannot cover all our investments and spending. But it's about getting this balance. And every time you launch a product, you have to do some price sensitivity analysis to see at this price point how much you can sell and at this price point how much, and where do you find the best balance. But, as a strategy for business, I will say just going for volumes does not work. Because you can easily get a lot of volume, but if you cannot make money by selling a lot, why do it? So we have to get the balance right between getting volumes and also value margin. You may have to be some time a little aggressive to make some penetration and expand distribution.
Not very aggressive. If you take Tuborg and Carlsberg, they are priced right. Palone is at the market level. But we are not very aggressive in pricing. This is a lot more about building distribution, building brands and building consumer and customer loyalty.
Tell us what you observe about Indian beer drinkers. Are they generally loyal to brands, or do they shuffle around, checking out new ones?
They are fairly loyal. Those who drink strong beer, tend to stick to strong beer. A lot of young people, the younger generation, aspire to drink the normal, light beer. But the older guys, the middle-aged people, tend to stick to strong beer. Maybe they try a couple of brands but they don't move around all the time, so they are fairly loyal. That's why you have to get them to try your product. Hopefully, they will like it and become loyal to your brand. That's the game of marketing. It's about first get them to try, and then if you have a quality product you will believe that a lot of consumers like what you are selling and then they start taking to your brand. So quality is very important for Carlsberg, ever since J C Jacobsen founded it back in 1847. This we believe helps us sometimes get new consumers when they try our different brands.
Can you share any numbers in terms of investments in India?
It's significant. We are not making money in India; we are investing for the future. We have four breweries and the fifth on is coming up. We have a big sales organisation and are employing a number of people. We also have to invest in our brands. So it's not a profit business at this point in time. And there are lots of components. Unlike in many other markets, it takes components five to 10 years or even more sometimes to get to a state where they can make a profit in India. In most markets it does not take more than three years.
If you look into the future, which countries do you expect to be the largest beer markets in, say, 2020?
It will be more or less the same as now. In the next five, 10 or 15 years, I don't expect India to be in the top five markets for beer. The consumption is still too low to get to that level. So we are looking at markets like Russia, the US and Brazil to be big markets in the beer category in five or 10 years' time. China is also very big.
But India will be bigger and bigger and you can imagine if consumption is barely one litre today, it will be 10 or 15 litres in 10 years' time. With more than a billion people, that's big. So I believe India is a very big market for Carlsberg in the long term and it's extremely important to have a strong presence there.
And what we are doing in India is similar to what we did in Russia, which is now the biggest market for us, bringing 40% plus of our global earnings. There, we started with a number of breweries in one part of Russia. Now we have the company across Russia, with a strong infrastructure. That's kind of a dream scenario that we would like to repeat in many places where you start in one corner of a big market. China, for example. We did not try to cover China to begin with. We started in western China and we are still primarily there. We sell only the Carlsberg brand across China. We own a lot of local brands in the Xinjian region, Gansu and those places, where we have local brands. And on top of that, we build international brands. In these markets of western China, there are about 130 million people and we have close to 60% market share. Then we will slowly penetrate into central and eastern China.
In India, we have started off in the north. We have started building a base and if it goes as we would like it to go, we will start strengthening and expanding towards other parts.
But, unlike Russia and China, you don't have many local brands in India?
Well, we see Palone as a 100% local brand. Carlsberg never gives out information about potential buys. But I can tell you that we are looking for opportunities all the time.
About your personal move back to Copenhagen from London and to Carlsberg from Gillette...what do you miss and have you gained?
I miss my two children, two boys, who still live in the UK and probably will continue to live there. They were only four and six when I moved to the UK and now they are 21 and 23. In Gillette, although I lived in England, I worked in different places. First I was in charge of northern Europe, and from 2000 onwards it was Eastern Europe, Africa, Middle East and India. I really enjoyed this exposure to many different cultures.
As a leader and as a human being, one learns a lot from getting exposed to different cultures and understands a little more about maybe why they think and do what they do in some Middle East countries versus in India versus Russia. That has helped me a lot on a job like this — of running an international company. I think I better understand why Russians are the way they are or why we do the way we do in Vietnam or in Denmark.
Also, London is a very international place. They have everything. Probably it's the best place for Indian restaurants outside India.
When I left Denmark, Carlsberg was not on my priority list to join. Because I felt in the 1990s and 80s it was primarily a Nordic company and was a much more production-driven company. It changed a lot during the period I was away. So when I was approached, this company was much more international, much more brand focused and I still saw lot of opportunity in terms of making it more commercial and more global. And at the same time, Procter & Gamble and Gillette were merging. So I saw it as a great opportunity.
Running a beer business, because of the category, is a fun business. You are selling something that people enjoy and often it is about fun, social life and having a good time. That also influences the culture in the company. So a lot of people in Carlsberg have a lot of passion for the business, for the brands. And that is always a very nice starting point if you want to have success and a lot of engagement in the organisation.
Now an easy one: what's your favourite drink?
It does differ. If it's with a meal, then it depends on the food you have. We have specialty beer...darker beer, stronger beer. Certainly with Indian food, I would like heavy beer. But if it's a hot summer day in Denmark, I love having a cold, chilled Carlsberg. So it depends on the situation.
So you like Indian food?
I love it. I like spicy food but when I have it I start sweating. But I love it. At home, I always have a lot of spice, every night. So if I order Indian food, I tend to order very spicy stuff. Then I start sweating, but I like it.
Green Capital
(Published in ET on Oct 27, 2010)
A look at Denmark, the world's most cleantech country
Rishi V K
Copenhagen
A line of windmills well into the sea welcomes one to Denmark as the airplane comes down across the sea crossing Sweden to land at Copenhagen airport. It’s quite fitting for a country that has emerged a global leader in clean technology and sustainable development, while the rest of the world still debates the impact of global warming and how best to deal with climate change.
"We want to become a good showcase to the rest of the world," says Lykke Friis, Denmark's minister for both climate and energy -- an unlikely portfolio in most other countries.
It could be more than that. When the world finally moves towards the inevitable—of following a sustainable development model and looking for ways to end dependency on fossil fuel for energy needs—Denmark may well be the place it turns to for expertise and experience.
And, when the fourth global ministerial level conference on renewable energy, the Delhi International Renewable Energy Conference 2010, takes place in the capital from October 27-29, this tiny Scandinavian country, with just about one-third the population of Delhi and one-eighth the size of Rajasthan, will be a talking point.
Denmark is rated the world's most cleantech country and the reasons are visible all over the country: in the streets of Copenhagen where thousands of people bicycle their way to work and back enjoying the privilege of wide bike lanes and special traffic lights for them; in the countryside dotted with hundreds of windmills; and even in Ms Friis' office in downtown Copenhagen lit and heated by alternative energy.
Denmark already generates 20% of all its electricity from wind and its wind turbine industry accounts for more than one-third of the world market with global leaders like Vestas, Siemens and Gamesa having research and production centres in the country.
It now wants to increase share of wind power to 50% by 2020 as it hurries to end dependency on fossil fuels and have a sustainable development model in place. And the whole country – the government, local authorities, corporations and the public – seems to be working towards that.
The government is offering tax benefits and building infrastructure to promote alternative energy, build carbon-neutral buildings, encourage use of public transport and bicycles and consume less electricity. It also provides seed capital for researchers and scientists working on clean technology.
Local authorities are competing with each other to adopt wind power, convert waste into energy and build cycle lanes as more and more people across income levels bike their way to work and study in this flat-as-a-calm-sea country. People are also increasingly opting for slightly costlier alternative energy to power their houses and following simple and effective electricity-saving methods such as turning off lights and computers.
And companies -- many of them global leaders in their specific fields -- are working on different aspects of sustainable development ranging from constructing carbon-neutral buildings and generating energy from wind, waste and waves to treating storm water and working on reducing vehicle exhausts to actively promoting biking and power saving among employees and simply
consuming less fuel and power than before.
They are aware that the whole world will be chasing the same goals sooner than later. When that happens, many Danish companies will have products, technologies and solutions to cash in on.
"Fuel prices are going to increase no matter what and alternative energy will become cheaper over time," says Ms Friis.
However, the energetic energy minister adds that right now Denmark is more bothered about its own energy transformation to alternative fuels from fossil fuels than about global opportunities.
Winds of Change
The story of Denmark’s energy transformation started in the 1970s when the country faced a severe energy crisis as crude oil supply from Middle East had almost stopped. "The government was forced to ban use of elevators in buildings and make people stop using cars to save energy," says Freddy Svane, the Danish ambassador to India.
The country was crippled and many factories were shut.
But it turned the crisis into an opportunity by working towards energy independence. It started with a number of coal-fired power plants, but Denmark swiftly changed track in favour of alternative energy sources when concerns over global warming emerged in the 1980s.
In a matter of decades, the once-energy-starved country became a champion of alternative energy a its installed wind power capacity rose from less than 1 MW in 1978 to 3,482 MW in 2009.
Denmark -- home of the inventor of wind energy, Poul la Cour, who set up the first wind power pant back in 1895 -- today generates one-fifth of its electricity from wind through 5,500 wind turbines, mostly in the countryside.
In another 10 years, it aims to increase wind share to 50%, partly through charging electric cars with wind power.
“Cars can be charged with wind energy produced in the night that we don’t use now,” says Ms Friis.
The country’s wind industry meanwhile sees major gains across the world.
“In a resource-limited world, prices of scarce resources such as fossil fuel will flare up significantly as consumption increases and most world governments understand this,” says Peter C Brun, senior vice-president at Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine maker.
The company is particularly upbeat about India despite strong competition from Suzlon. “India has a potential to generate 50 GW electricity from wind, but the installed capacity there is only 12 GW,” said Mr Brun.
Vestas entered India in 1997 and has a 9% share in the market. It has a research and development centre in Chennai and plans to make it one of the largest R&D centres by increasing the headcount to 500 people from 100 now.
Nothing Is Wasted
Denmark is not all about wind though. It is also working on other alternative energy sources such as biogas and solar energy.
Generating power out of waste, or waste-to-energy, is in particular a thrust area. The country was perhaps the first to ban landfill to dispose waste, back in the 1980s. Since then, municipalities are responsible for collecting and treating waste.
Incineration, or high-temperature treatment of waste that generates heat and electricity, is the order of the day. And, unlike in Germany and several other countries, there is no public outcry against incineration plants in Denmark.
"I have not met anybody who is negative about incineration," says Xxxxxx mayor
Jan Olsen, under director of Nordforbraending, a state-of-the-art waste-to-energy facility owned by 5 municipalities near Copenhagen, says one reason for this public support is the transparency. The plant is a glass building and people in the neighbourhood are welcome to visit it and take a tour anytime they want, he adds.
The plant generates heat and electricity. The plant recovers three-fourths of its cost by selling heat to municipal district heating systems that heats houses in this cold country and electricity to the Nordic grid. The rest is paid by municipalities.
Mr Olsen says such plants are viable in warmer countries such as India as heat can be used to power cooling machines.
Denmark has the technology to convert heat into cold and many others as hundreds of researchers are working on cutting edge technology with an eye on environment.
The government plays its role here too, by providing seed capital to individuals and start-ups.
"Most of these works are about innovation and ideas, and not about making money," says Mikkel Toft-Olsen, communications manager at Seed Capital, which operates Danish government's venture capital fund VEX Funds and also provides basic infrastructure to scientists, researchers and start-ups at Lyngby near Copenhagen.
Among the promising technologies being worked upon in this building are finding a way to store ammonia in a refillable canister on the exhaust pipes of trucks to reduce vehicular pollution and a super-light concrete that would make construction easier and buildings less harmful to nature.
Then there are established companies such as world's largest roof window specialist Velux that work on green buildings. The company is building six carbon-neutral buildings -- or, buildings that produce as much electricity or more as it consumes -- across four countries in Europe. Two of them -- a house in the outskirts of Copenhagen and a counselling centre inside Copenhagen University, known as the Green Light House -- are already in use.
Green Light House uses 70% less energy than a normal building of the same size by using daylight to light the interiors and conserving electricity use. It has solar panels and photovoltaic cells on its roof for generating electricity for the building and for heating. In summer months it generates more electricity than it uses and sells the excess to the district grid, and in winter months it draws electricity from the grid.
The European Union has already set a deadline to make all new buildings nearly carbon neutral by 2020, although the definition of "nearly carbon neutral" is open to interpretations.
But Denmark clearly wants to move to carbon-neutral buildings. "Building can't be sleeping giants; they have to wake up," says Ms Friis. It's proven that it is not expensive to build carbon-neutral buildings," she adds.
Karsten Duer, a daylight and indoor specialist at Velux, guesstimates that the additional cost would be about 15%.
Velux's game plan is to have some workable prototypes ready by the time carbon-neutral buildings become the norm.
Danish companies not working in cleantech too are helping the drive to sustainable development. Maersk, the world's largest shipping line, has saved 40% of its fuel costs by resorting to "slow steaming" or lowering speed of its ships by 20%. Carlsberg, the world's fourth-largest brewer, has relocated its brewery from Copenhagen city to 200 km west of the capital and plans to erect an environment-friendly city in the 80-acre land in the heart of Copenhagen.
Bicycle Country
Copenhagen has a good metro rail system, connecting nearby areas and towns. And it allows people to travel with their bikes. Most trains have cycle stands. On the roads of Copenhagen, cycle lanes are almost as wide as the vehicle lanes in many stretches and bikers have dedicated traffic signals.
Several people bike up to 40 km every day to work as companies and government institutions encourage workers to use more cycle. Most buildings have dedicated cycle parking areas and most companies have a fleet of bicycle for employees to use and have changing rooms for bikers. Many top executives use cycles. More than one-third -- 37% to be precise -- of all people working or studying in Copenhagen bike to their places of work and study.
The city already has 40 km of Green Cycle Routes, or roads dedicated to cyclists, and the authorities plan to extend this network to 110 km in another 15 years.
"We plan high-speed cycle tracks to encourage people travelling longer distances to shift to biking," says Ms Friis.
Way to go.
A look at Denmark, the world's most cleantech country
Rishi V K
Copenhagen
A line of windmills well into the sea welcomes one to Denmark as the airplane comes down across the sea crossing Sweden to land at Copenhagen airport. It’s quite fitting for a country that has emerged a global leader in clean technology and sustainable development, while the rest of the world still debates the impact of global warming and how best to deal with climate change.
"We want to become a good showcase to the rest of the world," says Lykke Friis, Denmark's minister for both climate and energy -- an unlikely portfolio in most other countries.
It could be more than that. When the world finally moves towards the inevitable—of following a sustainable development model and looking for ways to end dependency on fossil fuel for energy needs—Denmark may well be the place it turns to for expertise and experience.
And, when the fourth global ministerial level conference on renewable energy, the Delhi International Renewable Energy Conference 2010, takes place in the capital from October 27-29, this tiny Scandinavian country, with just about one-third the population of Delhi and one-eighth the size of Rajasthan, will be a talking point.
Denmark is rated the world's most cleantech country and the reasons are visible all over the country: in the streets of Copenhagen where thousands of people bicycle their way to work and back enjoying the privilege of wide bike lanes and special traffic lights for them; in the countryside dotted with hundreds of windmills; and even in Ms Friis' office in downtown Copenhagen lit and heated by alternative energy.
Denmark already generates 20% of all its electricity from wind and its wind turbine industry accounts for more than one-third of the world market with global leaders like Vestas, Siemens and Gamesa having research and production centres in the country.
It now wants to increase share of wind power to 50% by 2020 as it hurries to end dependency on fossil fuels and have a sustainable development model in place. And the whole country – the government, local authorities, corporations and the public – seems to be working towards that.
The government is offering tax benefits and building infrastructure to promote alternative energy, build carbon-neutral buildings, encourage use of public transport and bicycles and consume less electricity. It also provides seed capital for researchers and scientists working on clean technology.
Local authorities are competing with each other to adopt wind power, convert waste into energy and build cycle lanes as more and more people across income levels bike their way to work and study in this flat-as-a-calm-sea country. People are also increasingly opting for slightly costlier alternative energy to power their houses and following simple and effective electricity-saving methods such as turning off lights and computers.
And companies -- many of them global leaders in their specific fields -- are working on different aspects of sustainable development ranging from constructing carbon-neutral buildings and generating energy from wind, waste and waves to treating storm water and working on reducing vehicle exhausts to actively promoting biking and power saving among employees and simply
consuming less fuel and power than before.
They are aware that the whole world will be chasing the same goals sooner than later. When that happens, many Danish companies will have products, technologies and solutions to cash in on.
"Fuel prices are going to increase no matter what and alternative energy will become cheaper over time," says Ms Friis.
However, the energetic energy minister adds that right now Denmark is more bothered about its own energy transformation to alternative fuels from fossil fuels than about global opportunities.
Winds of Change
The story of Denmark’s energy transformation started in the 1970s when the country faced a severe energy crisis as crude oil supply from Middle East had almost stopped. "The government was forced to ban use of elevators in buildings and make people stop using cars to save energy," says Freddy Svane, the Danish ambassador to India.
The country was crippled and many factories were shut.
But it turned the crisis into an opportunity by working towards energy independence. It started with a number of coal-fired power plants, but Denmark swiftly changed track in favour of alternative energy sources when concerns over global warming emerged in the 1980s.
In a matter of decades, the once-energy-starved country became a champion of alternative energy a its installed wind power capacity rose from less than 1 MW in 1978 to 3,482 MW in 2009.
Denmark -- home of the inventor of wind energy, Poul la Cour, who set up the first wind power pant back in 1895 -- today generates one-fifth of its electricity from wind through 5,500 wind turbines, mostly in the countryside.
In another 10 years, it aims to increase wind share to 50%, partly through charging electric cars with wind power.
“Cars can be charged with wind energy produced in the night that we don’t use now,” says Ms Friis.
The country’s wind industry meanwhile sees major gains across the world.
“In a resource-limited world, prices of scarce resources such as fossil fuel will flare up significantly as consumption increases and most world governments understand this,” says Peter C Brun, senior vice-president at Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine maker.
The company is particularly upbeat about India despite strong competition from Suzlon. “India has a potential to generate 50 GW electricity from wind, but the installed capacity there is only 12 GW,” said Mr Brun.
Vestas entered India in 1997 and has a 9% share in the market. It has a research and development centre in Chennai and plans to make it one of the largest R&D centres by increasing the headcount to 500 people from 100 now.
Nothing Is Wasted
Denmark is not all about wind though. It is also working on other alternative energy sources such as biogas and solar energy.
Generating power out of waste, or waste-to-energy, is in particular a thrust area. The country was perhaps the first to ban landfill to dispose waste, back in the 1980s. Since then, municipalities are responsible for collecting and treating waste.
Incineration, or high-temperature treatment of waste that generates heat and electricity, is the order of the day. And, unlike in Germany and several other countries, there is no public outcry against incineration plants in Denmark.
"I have not met anybody who is negative about incineration," says Xxxxxx mayor
Jan Olsen, under director of Nordforbraending, a state-of-the-art waste-to-energy facility owned by 5 municipalities near Copenhagen, says one reason for this public support is the transparency. The plant is a glass building and people in the neighbourhood are welcome to visit it and take a tour anytime they want, he adds.
The plant generates heat and electricity. The plant recovers three-fourths of its cost by selling heat to municipal district heating systems that heats houses in this cold country and electricity to the Nordic grid. The rest is paid by municipalities.
Mr Olsen says such plants are viable in warmer countries such as India as heat can be used to power cooling machines.
Denmark has the technology to convert heat into cold and many others as hundreds of researchers are working on cutting edge technology with an eye on environment.
The government plays its role here too, by providing seed capital to individuals and start-ups.
"Most of these works are about innovation and ideas, and not about making money," says Mikkel Toft-Olsen, communications manager at Seed Capital, which operates Danish government's venture capital fund VEX Funds and also provides basic infrastructure to scientists, researchers and start-ups at Lyngby near Copenhagen.
Among the promising technologies being worked upon in this building are finding a way to store ammonia in a refillable canister on the exhaust pipes of trucks to reduce vehicular pollution and a super-light concrete that would make construction easier and buildings less harmful to nature.
Then there are established companies such as world's largest roof window specialist Velux that work on green buildings. The company is building six carbon-neutral buildings -- or, buildings that produce as much electricity or more as it consumes -- across four countries in Europe. Two of them -- a house in the outskirts of Copenhagen and a counselling centre inside Copenhagen University, known as the Green Light House -- are already in use.
Green Light House uses 70% less energy than a normal building of the same size by using daylight to light the interiors and conserving electricity use. It has solar panels and photovoltaic cells on its roof for generating electricity for the building and for heating. In summer months it generates more electricity than it uses and sells the excess to the district grid, and in winter months it draws electricity from the grid.
The European Union has already set a deadline to make all new buildings nearly carbon neutral by 2020, although the definition of "nearly carbon neutral" is open to interpretations.
But Denmark clearly wants to move to carbon-neutral buildings. "Building can't be sleeping giants; they have to wake up," says Ms Friis. It's proven that it is not expensive to build carbon-neutral buildings," she adds.
Karsten Duer, a daylight and indoor specialist at Velux, guesstimates that the additional cost would be about 15%.
Velux's game plan is to have some workable prototypes ready by the time carbon-neutral buildings become the norm.
Danish companies not working in cleantech too are helping the drive to sustainable development. Maersk, the world's largest shipping line, has saved 40% of its fuel costs by resorting to "slow steaming" or lowering speed of its ships by 20%. Carlsberg, the world's fourth-largest brewer, has relocated its brewery from Copenhagen city to 200 km west of the capital and plans to erect an environment-friendly city in the 80-acre land in the heart of Copenhagen.
Bicycle Country
Copenhagen has a good metro rail system, connecting nearby areas and towns. And it allows people to travel with their bikes. Most trains have cycle stands. On the roads of Copenhagen, cycle lanes are almost as wide as the vehicle lanes in many stretches and bikers have dedicated traffic signals.
Several people bike up to 40 km every day to work as companies and government institutions encourage workers to use more cycle. Most buildings have dedicated cycle parking areas and most companies have a fleet of bicycle for employees to use and have changing rooms for bikers. Many top executives use cycles. More than one-third -- 37% to be precise -- of all people working or studying in Copenhagen bike to their places of work and study.
The city already has 40 km of Green Cycle Routes, or roads dedicated to cyclists, and the authorities plan to extend this network to 110 km in another 15 years.
"We plan high-speed cycle tracks to encourage people travelling longer distances to shift to biking," says Ms Friis.
Way to go.
Kurt Westergaard: When a few lines changed life
(Published in ET on Feb 14, 2011)
Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist who outraged the Islamic world with a few strokes of his pen, tells Rishi V K that it was not a comment on the religion, but a defence for freedom of speech
Kurt Westergaard is one of the toughest people to meet in Denmark. It’s much easier to meet top executives and ministers, even the crown prince – all you need is to fix an appointment and walk in with your identity proof.
Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist who outraged the Islamic world with a few strokes of his pen, tells Rishi V K that it was not a comment on the religion, but a defence for freedom of speech
Kurt Westergaard is one of the toughest people to meet in Denmark. It’s much easier to meet top executives and ministers, even the crown prince – all you need is to fix an appointment and walk in with your identity proof.
But to meet Westergaard, a retired cartoonist who worked for a Danish language newspaper, you must send copies of your passport and other travel documents at least two days in advance, submit yourself and all your belongings including mobile phone and camera for a thorough frisking and checking before an army of 4-5 policemen double your size outside his house, and answer all their questions until they are satisfied with your reasons to meet him before the door finally opens.
And why do you want to meet this bald, old man in white beard who slow-motions around with the help of a walking stick and talks in a soft, trembling voice, late in the night, travelling more than four hours in train from Copenhagen at the risk of missing your early-morning flight back to India?
Because he is the one who made that infamous illustration of the Prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb as turban --- the cartoon that triggered violent protests across the Islamic world back in 2005 and placed Westergaard in the death list of Bin Laden's terrorist network Al-Qaeda. Also, because a biography of his, 'Manden bag Stregen' ('The Man Behind the Drawing'), was soon going to be out, potentially reviving the old tension.
So, did he expect a few strokes of pen to change his life for ever and make him an enemy of the second largest religion in the world? Does he regret doing it?
He didn't; and he doesn't.
Talking slowly across the dining table over a cup of black coffee under candlelight in his large living room at a peaceful locality in Aarhus, Westergaard says the Muslim world failed to grasp the spirit of the cartoon.
He says it was not a comment on the Prophet, but a call for Muslims to join the mainstream that believes in free speech.
“It was not a hate cartoon; it was a defence for freedom of speech.”
“It was not a hate cartoon; it was a defence for freedom of speech.”
In a blue jacket with a muffler around his sagging neck, this 82-year-old grand father with a friendly smile does not look aggressive or rebellious.
His aggression and free spirit come alive in the numerous paintings that adorn the walls on his living room—in the free-roaming horses and in the bold, wide-open eyes of the nudes—and in his words.
Take this for sample: "They say god created man in his own image; as an atheist, I think it's the other way: man created god in his own image."
For Westergaard, the Prophet cartoon and the accompanying article in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten was the start of a discussion on freedom of speech and religion.
It all started when some artists refused to do illustrations for a children's book on Prophet Mohammed because they were scared. Then, Jyllands-Posten published an article on Muslim alienation along with 12 cartoons. Westergaard's turned out to be the most controversial among them.
The day the article was published, there was a demonstration against it in Copenhagen. And Westergaard was perfectly fine with this. He is all for freedom of expression without violence.
“As long as a discussion does not end up in a funeral, it is alright,” says the man who survived a deadly attack in January 2010.
“We tried to explain that we recognise you and this is not to exclude you, but to include you...But some Muslims found it difficult to understand.”
“As long as a discussion does not end up in a funeral, it is alright,” says the man who survived a deadly attack in January 2010.
“We tried to explain that we recognise you and this is not to exclude you, but to include you...But some Muslims found it difficult to understand.”
The trouble started almost three months later when suddenly violent protests rippled across the Muslim world. Soon Westergaard, Jyllands-Posten and Denmark became high profile targets for Islam extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda. Within Denmark, a wide section of people including businessmen who lost their export orders from Islam nations felt the cartoon indeed went overboard.
Now he was planning to publish his biography and everybody was tense once again.
Besides Westergaard's book, then culture editor of Jyllands-Posten Flemming Rose, who assigned the article and illustrations, was to bring out a book, 'Tavshedens Tyranni' ('Tyranny of Silence'), that would include all the 12 drawings of the Prophet printed in the newspaper in 2005.
Adding to the tension was the revelation that a man who accidentally exploded a bomb in a Copenhagen hotel on September 11, 2010 (the ninth anniversary of 9/11) wanted to blow up Jyllands-Posten offices. Also, a fresh death list issued by Al-Qaeda had Westergaard, Rose and Jyllands-Posten's former editor-in-chief Carsten Juste in it.
Since then, both the books have been released without any untoward incident.
Adding to the tension was the revelation that a man who accidentally exploded a bomb in a Copenhagen hotel on September 11, 2010 (the ninth anniversary of 9/11) wanted to blow up Jyllands-Posten offices. Also, a fresh death list issued by Al-Qaeda had Westergaard, Rose and Jyllands-Posten's former editor-in-chief Carsten Juste in it.
Since then, both the books have been released without any untoward incident.
But Westergaard knows he lives in danger.
In January 2010, a Somali citizen broke into his house with an axe when he was babysitting his 5-year-old grand daughter Stephanie. He was in the bathroom when he heard the glass of the door shattering. “I had two options: either to confront him or go to the panic room and call the police,” he says in a gravelly voice, his eyes wide, face agitated, body trembling.
He shut himself up in the panic room, which was specially made due to the threat on his life.
He could hear Stephanie’s cry and the attacker, Mohamed Geele, asking her where her grandfather is. But he didn't hurt her. The police came very fast and foiled Geele's attempt to flee.
In January 2010, a Somali citizen broke into his house with an axe when he was babysitting his 5-year-old grand daughter Stephanie. He was in the bathroom when he heard the glass of the door shattering. “I had two options: either to confront him or go to the panic room and call the police,” he says in a gravelly voice, his eyes wide, face agitated, body trembling.
He shut himself up in the panic room, which was specially made due to the threat on his life.
He could hear Stephanie’s cry and the attacker, Mohamed Geele, asking her where her grandfather is. But he didn't hurt her. The police came very fast and foiled Geele's attempt to flee.
Westergaard had his first face-to-face encounter with Geele one year after the attack, in a court in Aarhus where the hearing on the case is still on.
“He is a fanatic,” says the cartoonist who started his work life as a school teacher before joining Jyllands-Posten for a 27-year stint.
“He is a fanatic,” says the cartoonist who started his work life as a school teacher before joining Jyllands-Posten for a 27-year stint.
Westergaard insists he is not worried about such threats.
It's not the panic room, or constant presence of huge security officers. (You train you lens on the wall paintings and one of them comes out of the kitchen into the frame to let you know: “No other photograph; only Mr Westergaard.”)
He gets his courage from age. “The older you get, the braver you get.”
It's not the panic room, or constant presence of huge security officers. (You train you lens on the wall paintings and one of them comes out of the kitchen into the frame to let you know: “No other photograph; only Mr Westergaard.”)
He gets his courage from age. “The older you get, the braver you get.”
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-02-14/news/28539552_1_crown-prince-prophet-mohammed-kurt-westergaard
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