(Note to moderator: You might edit out these examples saying it is
not "corporate" but I believe that these are opportunites for the
Indian corporates to enter and fill in the role that government has
failed to provide ! )

<<< MODERATOR'S RESPONSE: This is to clarify that neither Ankush's nor Ajay's
posts were edited at all. >>>


Hi people,

Some thing that Ajay said managed to raise me from my temporary
lurking status.

I quote:
"But tell me Meera, are not we living in a free world, where we are
entitled to our own choices. Everyone knows that tobacco or alcohol
is not good for health, but no body is forcing anyone to have it.
Yes, it shud not be made available to children, but adults make their
own conscious choice. What happens when a government
take an action to stop all this....do you think they are able to
achieve their objective? "

Cognitive and rational decision making as marketing guys know better
than anyone (HR guys included!) comes a piddly second to the power of
emotional/aspirational appeal !

So how can cold rational logical data like "not being good for
health" compete with a message like "wanna be cool...have x/y/z" ??

Free choice did someone say?

How can choice be free when media is controlled by advertisers and
therefore information that goes out either ignores the 'bad' parts or
is heavily edited ??

And I got this recently through another newsletter:

The Kalahandi Syndrome:

Kalahandi is perhaps more known for its abject poverty (87%) and
starvation deaths, than for being the rice-bowl of Orissa, which has
been consistently producing surplus rice over years. It also
represents the realities which don't find place in the main-stream
media[http://www.unesco.org/courier/2001_06/uk/medias.htm ]; after
all, as long as one can buy packed potato chips, why would anyone be
interested in reading about the plight of the potato-growers in UP?
[http://www.vshiva.net/aticles/potato_crisis.htm ]... Underlying
these anamolies is the remarkable "paradox of plenty", which India
has become/is becoming. With record 100mn+ tonnes of grains in
reserves, starvation deaths still happen and farmers continue to
commit suicide... but, nevertheless, the nation continues to exhort
the farmers to produce more and perish!!!
[http://indiatogether.org/agriculture/opinions/dsharma/cropyields.htm
]
http://www.dsharma.org/hunger/kalahandi.htm


Regards,
Gautam

http://www.geocities.com/gautamghosh
Blog: http://gauteg.blogspot.com