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Alms business is serious business in Ajmer, where pilgrims believe that giving enhances spirituality. What they don't know is that the old beggar woman is an employee of a larger syndicate that's run with the efficiency of an FMCG company. She's an employee, on the job and at the end of her stipulated five hours of begging she'll get the contracted Rs 550 from the syndicate. In return, she will hand over whatever she made, which could actually be less than what she's being paid.

Till about four years ago, begging in Ajmer during Urs was an informal affair: beggars assembled from all over the country, each fended for himself, and went back with whatever he or she managed to get. But then came the first syndicate. Now, there are about 10 of them at work during the 15-day Urs at the Khwaja Garib Nawaz Dargah. When Urs ends on July 5, the syndicates together would go back home or to their next venue, possibly Pushkar, where the fair begins shortly with about Rs 10 crore.

As business models go, the begging syndicate makes perfect sense. Running a syndicate is a `master'. He's the faceless boss. Under him is a shift-in-charge, and reporting to this person are the areas in-charge. Each syndicate hires beggars, who are offered a fixed sum per shift.

Source: Times Of India In Ajmer, begging's Rs 10cr biz

Your's Truly Sanjay, editor of this website, was on CNBC Awaaz on June 14, 2009 from 6-6:30 pm and 7-7:30 pm.

In addition to discussing the rising rates of property, Sanjay also answered viewers questions related to property all over India.

Click here to watch the show.

• Qubrex MD Sanjay Sharma on CNBC Awaaz June 14, 2009 Part 01
• Qubrex MD Sanjay Sharma on CNBC Awaaz June 14, 2009 Part 02
• Qubrex MD Sanjay Sharma on CNBC Awaaz June 14, 2009 Part 03
• Qubrex MD Sanjay Sharma on CNBC Awaaz June 14, 2009 Part 04
• Qubrex MD Sanjay Sharma on CNBC Awaaz June 14, 2009 Part 05

Barely four months after dropping its proposal to force TV channels to show only “authorized” feed during security emergencies, the government is now seeking to censor news portals and other websites, that too even at normal times.

Draft rules released this month empower a designated Central government officer to block public access to any information on the Net for wideranging reasons of security and national interest.

One glaring infirmity in the draft rules prepared by the department of information technology is that they make no stipulation for a prior hearing to the affected website. This is despite the fact that the web host who does not comply with the direction to remove the offending information is liable to be punished with imprisonment up to seven years.

Times View: The desire to curb the media’s freedom seems to run deep in the government. How else do you explain that while the draft rules give sweeping powers to officials, no attention has been paid to a basic thing like a hearing first? Babus tend to be quick in dubbing things as anti-national or compromising national security. Why should their ‘‘request’’ always be heeded? Also, what will these babus do if the web host is located outside India? Will the domestic media, therefore, bear the brunt of this potential abuse of power? The government should think this through before it finalises the draft rules.

Website gag: IT Act amendments not final Government had made an abortive attempt to gag TV channels through a draft notification amending the cable television network rules, but the sweeping power to control the content on websites is being fleshed out in the rules drafted under the recent amendments to the information technology (IT) Act.

Though it was passed by Parliament in December and the Presidential assent to it came in February, the IT amendment Act 2008 will not come into effect till the various rules drafted under its provisions, including the one on blocking public access to websites, are finalized.

Under the draft rules framed under section 69A of the IT amendment Act, every state or Central government department will be empowered to decide whether a certain news item, article, blog or advertisement relating to its jurisdiction is safe to remain on the Net.

Once somebody sends a “complaint” against any information displayed on the Net, the department concerned will take a call on whether the matter in question affects any of the six concerns mentioned in section 69A: interest of sovereignty or integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order or incitement to commit any cognizable offence relating to the other five reasons.

If it is satisfied about the need to pull the challenged information out of the public domain, the department concerned will send a “request” in the prescribed form to the “designated officer” at the Centre chosen by the secretary of the IT department. An interministerial committee headed by the designated officer will recommend whether the request to censor the web site should be accepted or not.

If the IT secretary approves the committee’s recommendation to take action, the designated officer will direct the intermediary or web host to block the offending information within the stipulated time. In the event of non-compliance, the designated officer can initiate criminal proceedings under section 69A, which imposes a maximum sentence of seven years on the web host.

The only remedy provided by the draft rules to media organizations is that a review committee will meet every two months to check whether the directions to block information have been issued in accordance with the IT Act.

Source:Times Of India Website Gag: IT Act Amendments Not Final, Govt Arming Itself To Censor News Websites

• Caught In The Web; Draft Rules Stir A Hornet's Nest: From Business-Standard

Companies like Hindustan Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, Cadbury's and Tata Tea have increased their digital ad budgets for individual brands. "FMCG companies are experimenting with increased budgets for one or two brands by increasing the brand outlay from 1per cent to 3-5 per cent. It's even 8-10 per cent in some categories,"says Prashant Mehta, chief operating officer, Komli, one of the largest digital advertising and technology companies in India.

The biggest plus point is that it is an interactive medium, so customers can be roped in easily. Look at the success of Sunsilk's sunsilkgangofgirls.com or Mattel's barbie.com. The GoaFest's internet & new media category saw a surge in entries, with the winners being brand campaigns such as Axe Spray Chocolate, Cadbury's `Celebrate with Cadbury Dairy Milk' and Tata Tea's `One Billion Votes'. Each of them had a huge role to play in the success of the brands.

But many FMCG companies say the digital medium will have only a limited role to play for some time, given the low internet penetration in the country. "The medium is not suitable for mass market brands as the target audience is not present online. It is better suited for brands targeted at urban consumers, professionals and housewives,"says Sangeeta Talwar, executive director, Tata Tea.

Not many agree with that. "FMCG companies must change their mindset to use the medium more effectively. They are used to one-way communication (television, print) and are using the medium largely to supplement their mass media campaigns and for one-way interaction,"says Rajesh Ghatge, executive director and chief operating officer of 141 Sercon, a digital media marketing company.

But these companies shouldn't forget that it's a growing medium that is being used by a lot of young users in the age group of 13-20 who access the internet in schools and at homes. "Marketers must also learn to engage with this segment," Ghatge says.

With inputs from Suvi Dogra

There are enough reasons why FMCG companies have no option but to experiment with digital ads. The internet medium has 50-60 million users online and is largely accessed by people in the age group of 20-35 years living in the metros and Tier I cities

NET SUCCESS:Sunsilk's sunsilkgangofgirls.com, Tata Tea's Jago Re and Axe Spray ads were big hits on the web

The verdict could be a step toward helping music and film companies seeking to recoup millions of dollars in lost revenues from filesharers, though analysts said they doubted it would stem the tide of illegal downloading.

"The Stockholm district court has today found guilty the four individuals that were charged with accessory to breaching copyright laws," the court said in a statement. "The court has sentenced each of them to one year in prison." Companies including Warner Bros., MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI were also asking for damages of more than 100 million crowns ($12 million) to cover lost revenues.

The court also ordered the defendants to pay over 30 million Swedish crowns ($3.58 million).

The men linked to The Pirate Bay Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom were charged early last year by a Swedish prosecutor with conspiracy to break copyright law and related offences. Lundstrom's attorney Per Samuelson told journalists he was shocked by the guilty verdict and the severity of the sentence.

"That's outrageous, in my point of view Of course we will appeal," he said.

"This is the first word, not the last. The last word will be ours." The group that controls The Pirate Bay launched in 2003, has maintained that since no copyrighted material is stored on its servers and no exchange of files actually takes place there, they cannot be held responsible for what material is being exchanged.

Industry specialists were not convinced the verdict would have a lasting effect. "Every time you get rid of one, another bigger one pops up. Napster went, and then up came a whole host of others ... The problem of file-sharing just keeps growing year on yeal and it's increasingly difficult for the industry to do anything about it," said music analyst Mark Mulligan of research firm Forrester "Pirate Bay was brilliant at self-publicity, but the reality is there are lots of other torrent-tracker sites," said Dan Cryan, senior analyst at media research firm Screen Digest. "The closing of the one that shouts the loudest won't make any difference."

Last year, Swedish prosecutors filed criminal charges against four men they say violate the country's copyright law by operating the Pirate Bay. The file-sharing site has long been one of the top Web destinations for people seeking access to pirated movies, games, books and business software. The site, which says it has 22 million users, is based in Sweden, where the government has taken few steps to curtail piracy until recently.

The four men--Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom--have denied the charges, arguing that they merely provided an index of content and didn't control what other people did with it.

Arguments have finished, and a ruling is due Friday.

The men face up to two years in jail, although the prosecution has asked for sentences of one year. Entertainment companies, including Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., EMI Group Ltd. and Sony Corp.'s Columbia Pictures, are also seeking a total of 117 million Swedish kronor ($14.2 million) compensation for lost revenue.

Source: Live Mint Court Nears Decision On File­sharing Site

The Congress candidate for the Bangalore South Lok Sabha seat, Krishna Byre Gowda, was on his way there. And soon enough, Gowda, a two-time Karnataka state lawmaker, arrived on the scene, straining under the weight of garlands.

Almost at the same time, real-time social messaging website Twitter registered an update that read: "Krishna is on his way over to the Gavi Gangadhara temple." "Methods of campaigning are constantly involving and cannot be static," says Gowda, 36, who has a masters degree in international affairs from American University, Washington, DC. "I have two kinds of voter categories to cater to--those with access to the Internet and those without.

The strategy just has to be twopronged." Gowda's team of 15 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 25 years update his Facebook, Orkut and Twitter profiles every couple of hours.

But while the Congress party's presence on the Internet and mobile airwaves seems restricted to Net-savvy politicians such as Gowda and south Mumbai contestant Milind Deora, the rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has gone all out in a countrywide mobile and Internet campaign to promote its prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani, other contestants and the party's ideology.

The party sends four text messages to mobile users across the country every day and has stepped up the onslaught in tech-savvy states. In Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa, mobile users receive auto-dialler calls that play recorded voice messages from candidates when a call is answered.

Bluetooth pushers If you walk into a shopping mall in Mumbai or Bangalore with your Bluetooth reception turned on, don't be surprised if you receive a request to download a message from the BJP.

Source: Live Mint Campaigning in Indian elections comes of e­-age