Amazon, Flipkart and predatory pricing

Competition Commission of India has ordered an investigation into predatory pricing, preferential seller agreements, violation of foreign investment regulations by Amazon and Flipkart. I had ordered a book by Dr Seuss last week, and had incorrectly received a Tamil language copy of Bhagavad Gita. 

This is the first time that Amazon had made a mistake. And I didn't know if the error was because of Amazon or because of the seller. I asked for the item to be collected back, through an online link, and the action was swift and quick. The next day, the item had been collected back, at no cost, and my money was back in the card in two days. 

This confidence that Amazon has given or restored, that they were at risk of losing, is the key to operate in the online market, successfully. And Amazon have gotten it right. I can't comment on flipkart or snapdeal, because Amazon has not given me any reason to move. 

Randamoozham, Bhima

Read an article by Prem Panicker, about the nature of the current protests; he argued that the protests have now moved from being only against CAA and NRC, and has enlarged in scope to one against the problems in the country, arising from policies of the government. 

Curious to know who Prem Panicker was, I read his wikipedia page and found that he is a cricket journalist, and he had translated the Malayalam novel 'Randamoozham' into English, titled 'Second Turn'. I recalled that this was being made into a movie starring Mohanlal.

I looked for the English translation on Amazon, but I found it with the title of 'Bhima', translated by Gita Krishnankutty. I downloaded a sample from Kindle to get a perspective on the book. From whatever little I browsed, it was quite a rich and heavy read, and would take time to complete. 

Kaifi Azmi is 101!

Google doodle celebrates 101st birth anniversary of Kaifi Azmi. Kaifi Azmi is said to have introduced urdu poetry to Indian cinema, and along with Sahir Ludhianvi and Jan Nisar Akhtar, changed the tenor of hindi lyric writing. 

He wrote his first ghazal at age 11, and also another one, to a challenge, which became a rage, after being sung by Begum Akhtar. Which one, I couldn't find. His best work includes 'ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon', 'waqt ne kia, kya haseen sitam', 'yeh duniya, yeh mehfil', 'tum itna jo muskura rahe ho', 'koi yeh kaise bataye', 'ya dil ki sunoh' and 'kuch dil ne kaha'. He wrote the lines for Heer Ranjha, where the entire dialogue was in verse. 

He was a full-time Marxist, and was called the last of the comrade songwriters. 

New beginnings!

Festive times here! And new beginnings! And the start of longer days! We are always on the lookout for a new date, to start something new. Birthday, new year's day, or Gudi Padwa, or Diwali or Dasera, or even the first day of a month, or the week, even Chinese new year, if nothing else comes up soon. 

This constant and perennial wait for the day from when everything will be right, all will happen on schedule, and life will be good. Hope floats! And when we are unable to pull off the ideal schedule or routine, after a few days of following it, we look for the next available date, so that we could start this effort all over again. 

There have been times when I'm motivated to start something, but just because a good date was coming up after a few days, I've delayed the start until that good date; never mind that I might end up probably not starting anything on the chosen day. A similar twist to this, is that if there is an impending job or overbearing deliverable, either at work or elsewhere, then we wait for the next slot after the current engagement is done. 

All in all, it is always a fight, not so much to do good for yourself, but the obsession to stick to a schedule.