Edunology - Saumya Aggarwal

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Twitter can be used as a hot prospecting tool. In today's digital world, Twitter has endless possbilities. It has huge amount of traffic and many times host first reaction to major events.

Build relations - First thing first
Don't keep adding hunderds of followers and then bombard with offers. Engage them and build a relationship. Respond to their query, help them out and showcase your expertise. Tweet value added messages and keep it simple.

Search people
Find right set of audience. If you represent car service company then find 'car break down' in specific area and save the search. So whenever, there is new tweet, you will be able to see them on your dashboards.You can then reach out to them in light mode. Don't sell immediately, offer help and remember to showcase your expertise.

Keep finding such people, follow them and invest time. If you are adding value, you will see they will add you back.

Establish an Image
Select the right handle, you can't chose @sextonight to sell education services. Have a relevant handle and then offer help. Keep building on previous efforts and don't get into negative discussions of competitors/products. We are there to show value of our product!

Don't just keep promoting your product/services day in day out. Strike a perfect timing and offer tips, suggest your product when relationship is built.

Be Transparent
Everything that you say will always be on Twitter, there are no secrets on Twitter. Always post correct information about your products and services, because what you say can always be found, it can haunt you in the future if you are posting false information about your company. If you are posting false information, it can discourage your prospects from purchasing your products or services.

Social media is about interaction. It's not just a tool for self promotion and plugs but, it's a place where you can interact with customers, colleagues, and prospects.

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Last year, Indian Government had made it mandatory to e-file income tax returns for assesses with an annual income of Rs 10 lakh and above. This time, the government the plan is to do the same for taxpayers with a taxable income above Rs 5 lakh.

The reason behind the move, said officials, was the fact that about 80 per cent of taxpayers who are not mandated to file e-returns are already doing so. There are 35 million taxpayers, of which about 1.8 million fall in the income tax slab of Rs 5-10 lakh. A similar number are in the above Rs 10 lakh category. 16 million people who electronically filed their returns last year, many had a taxable income of less than Rs 10 lakh.

The tax department was earlier expecting electronic returns to go up to 20 million this year. With this new provision, the number could go up further. E-filing will also enable faster processing of refunds.

Few pointers:

1. Don't panic: It is very simple to file returns online. If you are not comfortable, approach your Chartered Accountant.

2. No Digital signatures are required for filing online, you just need the send the online acknowledgement with signature to Income Tax department.

3. 5 Lakhs does not mean your CTC. It is net taxable income after deducting LTA, HRA, Medical etc.

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Who is the real culprit in increasing rape cases across India?

I just came back from hectic official trip of Chennai and Pondicherry. On the airport, happened to meet four gentlemenWe all had ample time as Air India flights are always delayed. I asked if Air India has any another flight for me, answer given was flight is only 1 hours and 15 minutes delayed. Anyways, these four people, one is from Mumbai, second is from Rajasthan and other two others from Kerala. They all work in Mumbai for multinational companies. Over coffee, we happened to discuss the recent forgetable Delhi rape incident. For confidential purposes, not disclosing names and companies of our four friends.

Here is the summary of conversation:

1. Strangely all were of the opinion that girl was at fault too. She should not have stepped out during late hours in country like India irrespective of a particular city.

2. Indian society is backward and still girls are not given equal status. They acknowledged education, old mind set and unequal money distribution playing major roles.

3. All agreed that women are not safe in any part of India. Though they felt Mumbai is better despite most corrupt police system in the country. They ranked Bangalore as best city to live in India.

4. Rapists according of them have done extremely bad act and should be hanged till death. Congress government which has been ruling India majorly in last 60 years is also main culprit for such divided society.

5. Laws are present in India but police is only interested in money and not protecting such laws.



I do not agree to few statements. Girl was not at fault at all, everyone has right to roam freely. We need laws that do not accept such incidences at all, rapists should be hanged till death and most importantly implementation of them. We as society need to rise, codemn people since beginning and not let such shameful events happen in India.

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Ransomware was first seen in Russia and Russian-speaking countries in 2009, according to the Symantec whitepaper "Ransomware: A Growing Menace." The first known instance of the tactic came in a pop-up that claimed to be a message from Microsoft. It alerted the user that the computer had to be activated by the company before use by obtaining a code via an SMS message. That message was then sent to a premium rate number that charged the victim. Since then they improved the charging mechanism and recover cost was upwards of Indian Rupees 25000 (US$500).





Please do not give up on such malware practices online.

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I happened to attend TedxGateway at NCPA, Nariman Point at Mumbai today. Thanks to Bloomberg for sponsoring my corporate ticket. Overall a fantastic experience with some awesome and inspiring speakers. Here are key take aways:

1. TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading." TED started granting licenses to third parties to organize independent TED-like events internationally. At these TEDx events are prohibited from making profit, although sometimes a fee ($100 max.) can be charged to cover running costs. The licences are free but franchisees are vetted by TED and events are subject to conditions. Speakers are not paid and they must agree to give TED the right to edit and distribute their presentation under a Creative Commons licence.

So, there came about TedxGateway at Mumbai.

Source: Wikipedia

2. Event saw 22 speakers from India and abroad, all with brilliant ideas worth sharing. Most of them being inspiring and top notch speakers. Worth mentioning few:

Mittal Patel:
She runs an NGO called VSSM in Gujarat which works for nomadic communities who are not even registered under census in India and leading unrecognized life. Tradition there is to enter prostitution for girls to earn family income. They can not even own land. Mittal came into act and got few girls married along with getting 20000 official voter id cards for the community.

Cynthia Koenig:
Imagine millions of rural women going several kms to get water for their household. They typically get water by carrying utensil on top of their heads, it is such a painful and time consuming process. Cynthia's organization has decided to made it a history with wello as shown below. She has made the process simple by pulling a wheel in which enough water can be carried. The device is only 750-1000 INR.


Arunachala M.M:
Arunachala is from a poor background in the South of India where he found that women do not have access to hygienic sanitary pads. Recognizing the problem, he created the world's first low-cost machine to produce sanitary towels. This social entrepreneur sells the £1,600 machines directly to rural women through the support of bank loans and not-for-profit organisations. A machine operator can learn the entire towel-making process in three hours and then employ three others to help with processing and distribution.

There were many more speakers but these three touched the hearts and souls of everyone.

3. Overall the event was a huge hit. Though due to inexperienced team it was slightly mis managed, started 45 minutes late, no network coverage, no wifi to tweet, no pads/agenda fliers even for corporate attendees but I am sure they will learn and make 2013 events even better.

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He counted numbers of political posters up on Mumbai streets while driving to work. In 1.9 kms of stretch, there were 106 posters!!! Now I tried to think who are putting up these posters and why:

1. Political Party workers : To gain political mileage
2. RWAs : To please political leaders and get their society cleaned up
3. Associations like Yuva Morcha : To enter into politics or showoff or become local group leader (good for nothing)

Implications:

1. Illegal hoardings as these are politically driven
2. Revenue loss for local municipal as lot of commercial ads could have been put. I happened to call an ad agency (name confidential) who told me:
Illegal ad rate: Rs. 5000 near signal of Andheri Naka per month (he said "sab setting ho jayegi", it means everything will be sorted with relevant authorities)
Legal ad rate: Rs. 10000 including for same site including undertable payment for clearance in few days
3. Lost cause: Nobody would be looking at them. Damn it, people are fed up.
4. City looks awful. It makes entire surronding look dull.

This is not only trend on Mumbai roads but across the country. I remember me and Paras were going to Ghaziabad, city in Uttar Pradesh adjacent to New Delhi and we came across poster of Ms. Mayavati on every single pole on streets.



What can be done:
1. Public awareness
2. Empowering local municipal to remove such hoardings and not to give up from political pressure
3. Mass rallies from people like us to destroy such posters
4. Ban people in politics whose illegal hoardings are up on streets

These are instances that make me feel that we are living in uneducated and unregulated society. Keep posting your comments on this issue.