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The New P2P
That's politicos-to-people. In ancient Rome, senators would gather their constituents round at street corners and update them on the state of affairs. But this is the 21st century, the age of the internet, and communicating to a billion people isn't that easy. Ergo, popular constituency building has gone hi-tech. Just a few day ago, Jairam Ramesh-Congress Party's irrepressible enfant terrible, and one-time speech writer to Rajiv Gandhi-launched jairam-ramesh.com, his personal portal. The idea? Build ''a forum for interaction on economic and political issues'' (so far so good), so that people can ''leverage my experience and knowledge''. Says the man, who's not just a columnist, but also a television personality (he's on TV five-days-a-week), as he tools around with his Toshiba Liberetto 110: ''I will personally answer all the queries that I get.''
Notwithstanding his fetish for hi-tech, Ramesh-alumnus of IIT-Bombay, Carnegie Mellon, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-actually is quite late to the politicos' dotcom party. The early e-arrivers were Union Power Minister Suresh Prabhu and, of course, Naravaripally Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. Both have websites (sureshprabhu.com and chandrababunaidu.com) that talk about their political rise and beliefs. The power minister actually has a personal mission statement (why are politicians beginning to sound so much like corporates?), which is to do his bit to make India the most developed nation in the world. Naidu's portal, on the other hand, also doubles up as the Telugu Desam Party's unofficial homepage, where you can find details of its milestones and welfare programmes. But where Ramesh's website stands out is in its slickness of design and content. Besides, he actually is promising to talk about more than just himself. You know what we feel about these P2Ps? As long as they serve some purpose, the more the merrier. Destiny And The Dice
He doesn't have one, but if Ranjan Marwah had a middle name it would most certainly be 'Survivor'. Barely 32 years ago, Marwah was trying to scrape a living as an illegal immigrant in Hong Kong, and simultaneously woo the daughter of an immigration official to stay out of trouble. Today, Marwah runs one of Asia's biggest executive search firm (with billings of $200-million), and last February he was named Asia's most admired individual headhunter for the financial services sector (excluding Japan) by Asiamoney. Luck? Surely, there's some element of it, but street-smartness and smooth-talking are what we would imagine helped Marwah claw his way to the top. Even today, Marwah won't admit that what he does is headhunting. Rather, ''promoting the cause of the individual'' is what he says Executive Access is about. So that's Marwah for you: part Deepak Chopra and part Egon Zehnder. But not long ago, this father of seven was a humble crime reporter at a national daily, whose courtesy a Lufthansa junket to Hong Kong would forever change his destiny. Like charity, headhunting begins, it seems, with oneself. Flight Of Fancy
When Rajive Gupta is not busy running his upmarket women's clothing chain in Delhi's Khan Market, Bizaare, he likes to do one of these: go hot ballooning, bungee jumping, or scuba diving. But why would a 38-year-old scion of a business family (of the Tej Press), who's now talking of taking his retail store national, want to risk his neck just for kicks? ''Adventure sports can teach you to be decisive, quick-footed and focussed-things that help you run your business better,'' says Gupta. But, then, he has always been an adventure sports freak. In 1984, he represented India at the World Hot Air Ballooning Championship at Nantes, France, and 11 years earlier had flown India's first hot air balloon, Sona. In between getting the blueprint ready for his Rs 5 crore retail business' 'go-national' bid (''I want Bizaare to be the market leader in women's fashion wear,'' he boasts), Gupta plans to find time to try his hand at painting, and even children's literature. No kidding. |
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