Anupam Mahor: October 2014

Saturday 25 October 2014

El Clásico

Real Madrid against Barcelona is never just an ordinary game of football, and the dazzling array of plots and subplots means this weekend's meeting at the Bernabeu is surrounded by more anticipation than ever.

In a continuation of their absurd and hysterical arms race, Real Madrid and Barcelona both bought some of the biggest attacking stars in world football this summer. But because we've already had the pleasure of watching quite a bit of James Rodriguez in a white shirt, the spotlight in this edition of El Clásico is on one man in blaugrana: Luis Suarez.

The global television audience for Saturday's game will be colossal, with estimates placing the number of worldwide viewers between 400 and 500 million.

Although it is a source of considerable irritation for British fans who will be unable to watch the first 15 minutes because of broadcasting regulations, La Liga's authorities have done their best to boost the audience by scheduling kick-off for 6pm local time (17:00 BST).

Ronaldo Vs Messi: Lionel Messi's left-footed strike in Saturday's 3-0 victory over Eibartook him to the milestone of 250 career goals in La Liga, leaving the Barcelona man just one behind the record held by 1940s Athletic Bilbao star Telmo Zarra.

The tantalising prospect of Messi breaking the all-time Spanish goalscoring record against Real Madrid in the Bernabeu has not, as you would expect, gone unnoticed in Spain.

22 - Ronaldo in a league of his own

Even by his own outrageously high standards, Real's Ronaldo has enjoyed a purple patch in the opening two months of the season, with a La Liga goals-per-game sequence of 1-1-3-4-1-3-2.

With 15 strikes to his name, Ronaldo has registered more goals in the opening eight rounds of the season than any other player in La Liga history, a feat all the more remarkable for the fact that he missed one of those games - a 4-2 defeat against Real Sociedad.

Perhaps the craziest statistic to provide some perspective to the Portugal star's hot streak is that he has scored more league goals this season than 81 of the 98 teams in Europe's five major leagues, including Atletico Madrid, Liverpool and Arsenal.

And Ronaldo's three hat-tricks this term have taken his career La Liga tally of trebles to 22, putting him joint level at the top of the pile with Zarra and Alfredo Di Stefano.

Ronaldo breaking the all-time hat-trick record and Messi setting a new all-time goalscoring record in the same game? With these two extraordinary players, anything is possible.

"Cristiano ronaldo in his best of form, Is there anyone who is gonna stop this goal machine? I hope not."

500 - Can you hear them?

Will Barca's 500 fanatical fans be celebrating at the Bernabeu on Saturday night?

Barcelona will face a decidedly hostile atmosphere inside the Bernabeu, with only 500 of their supporters tucked away in a corner high inside the grand old stadium.

The small allocation made available to the visitors is nothing unusual because Spanish football simply does not have a culture of fans travelling to away games.

Projected lineups

Real Madrid (4-4-2): Iker Casillas; Marcelo, Sergio Ramos, Pepe, Dani Carvajal; Isco,Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, James Rodriguez; Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema

Barcelona (4-3-3): Claudio Bravo; Jordi Alba, Jeremy Mathieu, Gerard Pique, Dani Alves; Javier Mascherano, Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta; Neymar, Lionel Messi, Pedro Rodriguez

Suarez could make a start in the first game he's eligible for, but since he's yet to play in a match, it's hard to pick him to start. Because Busquets is hurt, Javier Mascherano will move up the pitch in his absence. Both teams have goalkeeper dilemmas, but it's tough to pick against the two who have been first choice in the league this season.
Prediction

At their best, Madrid have looked unstoppable at this season. And at their worst, they've looked like a team that can be easily carved up by average sides. Their attacking talent (and Barcelona's questionable defense) leaves open the possibility that they could score six goals in this game.

"Ronaldo and Messi are, if anything, better than last season. It is so hard to call but I would go for Real to edge it this time. It will be full of absolutely everything - quality, intensity and lots of incident. It is becoming an unmissable event."

Thursday 9 October 2014

Face of Facebook in India

Face of Facebook In India

Mark Zuckerberg arrived in India today, and will also meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi tomorrow. Zuckerberg is in India to address the first Internet.org summit taking place on October 9-10 in the city. The young billionaire is expected to meet members of other key ministries as well.

Zuckerberg is the third high profile CEO of a US-based corporation, after Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Micrsoft's Satya Nadella, to visit India in last few days.

'Internet.Org' aims to make Internet access affordable for people across the globe. Focused on enabling the next five billion people without Internet access to come online, the founding members of the project include Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung.

The partners are collaborating on developing lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones and deploying Internet access in under-served communities.

The Internet.org summit will bring together experts, officials and industry leaders to focus on ways to deliver more Internet services for people in languages other than English.

Zuckerberg will also meet Modi to talk about how Facebook and the Indian government can collaborate on Internet.org. In July, Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sandberg visited India. She had met Modi, who has effectively used social networking during his election campaign and later even in governance.

When Modi met Sandberg, he had suggested the use of Facebook for improving governance, better interaction between people and the government, and to attract more tourists to India. India is an important market for the social networking company. With over one billion users globally, the company gets over 100 million users from India. Many of these users log onto the website from their mobile devices.

According to research firm eMarketer, the number of users in India will touch 108.9 million by the end of the year as compared to 77.8 million in 2013.Meeting PM Narendra Modi and other diplomats will be at the top of Mark’s list but there are other things that might fit into his itinerary to India.

1. Mark’s push for Internet.org in India

The other big reason for Mark’s visit to India is also about accelerating the push for his dream project, Internet.org. According to sources he will speak at the Facebook-promoted Internet.org’s Content and Usability Summit, which is being held in Delhi. The summit aims to focus on accelerating the creation and consumption of locally relevant content and value-added services in India.In fact during the recent acquisition of WhatsApp for $19 billion, Mark had shared that he wants the app to be the dial tone of the Internet. He also informed that the messaging app at some point will fuel the ambitions of the Internet.org project. His latest meeting with Mexico’s President Peña Nieto also focused around ways to work together on Internet.org to make affordable internet access available to everyone in Mexico. This would also be one of the core issues to be discussed when he meets Modi in the next few days

2. Joining hands with Swach Bharat or Clean India Campaign

During this trip, the present Indian government will propose Facebook to partner for the recently launched ‘Swach Bharat’ or ‘Clean India’ campaign. However, there isn’t any confirmation from Facebook on this alliance.

Launched on 2nd October, Swach Bharat campaign or Clean India is one of PM Modi’s prized projects. Faintly inspired by the recent viral campaign “Ice Bucket Challenge” , the PM has nominated nine celebrities including cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, industrialist Anil Ambani and several actors to spread awareness on cleanliness and make ‘Swachh Bharat’ a people’s movement.

3. Strengthening the business confidence in India for Facebook

India is a big market for Facebook and it isn’t saturating like the developed markets such as US and Canada. Back in the first quarter Facebook shared that India crossed 100 million active users — the second country, after the United States. Out of which 84 million access the social networking site from their mobile devices.

It is a known fact that India is a big market for the social networking giant which is one of the most popular social networking site in the country. However, business wise Facebook is still struggling to build an environment like it has in developed countries.

Earlier this year, Facebook reported that in India it has witnessed a 63% rise in profits during the 2013 financial year. Facebook India reported profit after tax of about Rs 9.6 crore for the year ended March 2013, compared with Rs 5.9 crore the previous year.

While Facebook’s profit might be increasing on papers, it was reported by NBW that the revenue contribution by India is negligible (0.29%) even though it drives more than 8.2% of Facebook’s user base.

Facebook is well aware of the challenges in a market like India which has a very low internet penetration rate and is still ruled by feature phones. To increase revenue shares Facebook has been working on an ad product built around the missed call feature. So this trip could be also gaining more business confidence from the market, just as Sheryl’s did in her India trip.

4. Stronger ties with the government

Setting up local servers in the country by social networking giants has been a hanging issue from the last few years. The issue comes into focus whenever the country witnesses any communal clashes. We saw this happening during the recent riots in Pune, reported to have its roots in social media.

The present government had recently assured the Supreme Court that due to a spurt in online child abuse and sex crimes linked to pornography it will ask social networking sites – including Facebook, Google and Twitter to have servers in India so that authorities can keep tabs on objectionable content. While there is an ongoing debate on the same, Facebook wouldn’t like to set up servers as of now so having a stronger tie with the present government which is digitally inclined wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Again this trip wouldn’t be a bad one for Mark to raise a toast with the telecom giants in the country and work out a way on how both can work together with the changing times.

Definitely it is a very important trip for Mark Zuckerberg and for India.

Friday 3 October 2014

Top 10 place to visit before you die

10 place to visit before I die

Our world is filled with indescribable beauty, both man-made and natural, and it’s hard to say whether a single lifetime would truly be enough to truly experience all of it. Most of us will probably never see everything that the world has to offer us, but it’s worth a shot! Here are 10 incredible places around the world that are definitely worth adding to your bucket list.

My personal favourite is ecological tourism – climbing mountains, exploring deserts or simply in drinking in the sights of the countryside. However, you can’t deny the appeal of some of the man-made structures as well – from the epic, ancient grandeur of the Pyramids of Giza to the sunny charm of sea-side villages in Greece.

It’s a wonderful and beautiful world we live in, so make sure to see as much of it as you can before you kick the bucket! Here’s an excellent quote from St. Augustine that will hopefully inspire you to get your foot out the door: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”