Business model of politics

My friend Ajay has an interesting series of articles on the state of Karnataka Politics. As I read them I wonder that probably the core of the problem is because the business model is such - spend a lot of money to get to power and once you get to power you loot the public to get the money back. US solves this problem by ensuring candidates directly raise money through donations or contributions. Other way to solve this problem is by giving promises like free power - but every political party can do it and the one which doesnt is a loser - classic prisoners dilemma problem. Another option India is considering is to let the central government allocate funds to parties to fight elections - dont know how far this will go but does seem to be an interesting idea!

Joost: From the founders of Skype

While ebay wrote off a substantial amount of its skype investment, the founders took it to create their next venture called Joost which is basically anytime, anywhere TV off the net. If you have a good broadband connection you can basically watch most of Americas TV Channel's online - more importantly for free. I tried it but its asking too much for an indian broadband connection but I could actually see some stuff.

They will probably sell this to ebay as well;) given the loss ebay has made on skype - it should have a right of first refusal on any future project of these guys. Given that ebay took such a huge loss on skype, the promoters will also lose a lot of negotiation power in the future ventures - a good example of why one shouldnt be greedy:)

Amazons Kindle

Check out amazon's kindle its an electronic book reading product through which one can also access books wirelessly. It charges the user inclusive of bandwidth charges for download - one could subscribe to free blogs and get them for a fee - which goes towards download for sprint mobile(i think). This has kind of put off a lot of people since amazon is trying to make money off free blogs. Why would someone buy a kindle (its sold out btw on Amazons site) when one has a laptop to access blogs and stuff - will e-books be such a craze and will kindle make reading off it as easy as reading any normal book - if not this version lets hope the future versions do. Some innovation in book reading at last!

The eco of bangalore?

I have subscribed to Mint now for their new one year offer at 299 and find the paper pretty interesting and fresh however I read a recent article of theirs - which was called the economics of bangalore - probably to keep their new bangalore readers thrilled. I was kind of confused after reading the article - Coase's theory explains why firms at all exist in the first place - because markets are inefficient due to high transaction costs but it can also explain China's boom and not just Bangalore's. I still find Bangalores success a mystery - its probably the weather - probably the only place computers could run without AC through out the year;)But a lot of Bangalore's success is due to Infy and its founders (I still have issues that they (Cos like Infy) dont pay a very high tax but thats a different issue) and probably even companies like Wipro. Bangalore somewhat is also an example of how a brand just keeps rolling on and on. But its taken a beating of late - due to the politics of bangalore and wht not but primarily because its over grown itself - but i was in chennai recently and the traffic in most of chennai is getting as bad or worst than bangalore. Bangalore roads are better in some places. What do u think needs to be done to bring bangalore back on its track and more importantly how does one de-risk banglore from a single Industry focus of IT.