The receptacle for tiny, small, little, not-so-little, big, mega & giga ideas.
Friday, September 29, 2006
An Idea for a Novel Political Experiment
To attract investment for a small state, how about organising a worldwide political lottery. The winner of the lottery will get to head the state for a whole year. Prize of the ticket: 100 dollars. The winner should declare faith in the constitution of the state, he heads. He will not have the power to declare war.If the experiment clicks, this lottery can be repeated every year.
So many of the world's miseries are the result of irrational religious beliefs and evil that men do in the name of God. It's time to introduce rationality into our lives in a more tangible form. It's time for people to build temples of rationality. Although I'm not sure who will finance the building of these temples.
For lack of a better term, I shall label this as Vitagraphology. Vitagraphology is a science that shall deal with studying life graphs of people. A life graph is the curve you get when you plot a person's fortune over his/her span of life. For plotting, the life graph one needs a lot of information about the person. By studying many such life graphs, we can find out a) What kind of people share the same life graphs? b) Are life graphs repeated at all by the creator? c) Do life graphs follow an equation? d) If so what is the equation? e) If one arrives at such an equation, can we predict the future course of a person?
Create a life and a lifestyle along the banks of the Covum and Adyar rivers. Turn it into a Corporate Project. Put together a plan. Do an IPO to raise funds. Use the funds to clean up and unclog the water bodies and build economically viable waterside properties alogside them. As a publicly traded and answerable company it might stand a chance of happening.
Introduce a clause in all wills stating that children will have access to the deceased parent's fund only when they have a job of their own. The minute deposits cease in the heirs' salary accounts, the access to all funds of the parent is frozen.
Create a character called 'Bet Chod' and plug him as a sideshow for cricket match telecasts. His job will be to give a funny spin on the business of betting in cricket.
For each fight you have, write a handwritten letter saying your sorry. You'll get so tired of fighting and writing handwritten letters or you'll so enjoy writing letters that you'll fall completely, crazily in love from fighting. Note: It has to be handwritten.
When it's clear that there's little hope for a full length one dayer, opt for a 11-over cricket match. Basically the idea is every player will have to bowl and bat one over. This is a simple way to determine the best team.
Launch a magazine called 'Black & White'. The magazine will have a split personality. Half of the magazine will carry positive, feel good, logical, rational, scientific stuff & news you can use. The other half will carry irrational, emotional, provocative, wild, bohemian, passionate and sometimes utterly useless stuff. There will be two covers. The front coverstory will have a New Yorker / Economist personality. The back cover will have a Playboyesque personality.
To create a buzz around India, announce a list of brand ambassadors for India from 20 odd fields. Fly them across the world to carry out a cultural offensive in foreign lands.
Ammend the Duckworth-Lewis statute. And announce that D-L will come ino play only when both the teams have played at least 30 overs in a rain interrupted macth. If the teams have played lesser, then the match will be declared a draw.
Digital mirrors with reflective LCD monitors that can photoshop your face and present various looks & style options at the click of a button. Also the digital mirror should be capable of recommending the optimal mix and match of colours for your skin tone and mood.
Try out a new form of advertising called Teethvertisements. Pay celebrities to get your brand name marked on their teeth. Every time they flash their pearls, you'll have no choice but to see the brand name. This medium is ideal for unknown brands that want that sudden burst of awareness.
Start a speculative stock exchange called Quakex. Countries, states, cities and towns can list themselves in this exchange. The listed stocks can use the exchange to raise funds for earthquake management. While investors can make money by speculating wildly on stocks that will get affected in case the earth quakes.
Teach farmers to work together. Look at a way to increase the size of agricultural land-holdings. One of the reasons our farming is not productive is the size of agricultural holdings. Create farmer co-operatives that will make it possible to farm in a more economical manner on a larger land mass. Admittedly, that will take us away from subsistence farming, but it will make agriculture more professional and more paying. Find a way to duplicate the Amul experience in agriculture.
The Government of India should work on creating a rural real estate boom. This can be done by creating a nodal agency (call it Dharthi)that will have the powers to a) Launch an ad campaign explaining how real estate in villages is far cheaper than metros. b) Create a web site for rural real estate deals to attract investment from NRIs. c) Cut the red tape to ensure rural real estate deals go through as quickly as possible. d) Educate the villager on the pros and cons of selling his land. e) Help the villager with investment ideas on what to do with the real estate money.
Incentivise it in the form of tax breaks and subsidies for people who choose not to have babies. A lot of people tend to have babies for economic reasons and for the security of having someone who might take care of them when they get old and feeble.
Raise the limit for the height of buildings. India needs more skyscrapers. It'll reduce the outward spread of cities and set things up. There is more space in the air than on the ground.
The Government of India should unveil a new concept called 'Spotlight Cities'. Basically 'Spotlight Cities' are small cities chosen randomly for rapid development by the Central Government. A 'Spotlight City' will get a cheque of Rs. 1000 crores and all possible help from the Central Government. The smartest personnel from the Central Government will be made available for overseeing the utilisation of this amount. The thrust will be to create a sustainable economy in that city. Every 'Spotlight City' will be picked by lots by the President of India on Independence Day. Every year we'll have a new 'Spotlight City'. Since this project is bound to attract media attention, the government will be forced to deliver in these cities. No State Government will oppose this concept as the moneys are too good to refuse.
Buy out Reva. Redesign the chasis. Lobby with the government to switch to electric cars. And launch the car at a 2.5 lakh price point. Also implement the suggestion by fellow ideator Avi.
Consider launching a rent-an-electric-car fleet in a city, as a test case. Position it as an alternative to autorickshaws and other forms of bad public transportation. It also has green credentials.
A massive photo tome that chronicles the cradle-to-grave potrait of a person. Every page of the book will capture the mood-of-the-month of the person chosen for study.
Let's rename it the 'Upwardly Mobile Class'. This might be an interesting way to push the people in this class out of their conservative mindset. Research has proved that positive naming cues can have implications on what a category of people do.
The North East is full of gifted guitarists. Launch a Heavy Metal Talent Hunt there. Put together a metal band with the available talent. And promote them bigtime with roadshows & music videos. There is a fat chance that we might end up discovering our first world class metal band. The payoffs for Channel V - greater viewership in North East & high voltage brand ambassadors.
Start a radio channel that uses only syndicated podcasts from across the world. In essence this will be the radio version of Youtube. All that needs to be done is to give the radio some structure and templates.
Build a 'Complimenting Machine' that can randomly shower a person with encomiums. This will be a huge hit with people as all they want to hear is good things about themselves.
The Week magazine is going nowhere. It's hit a plateau. The problem - Northies see it as a Southern magazine. And the Southies don't think it's Southie enough. The solution - relaunch The Week as a national tabloid. Make it racy, spicy and dish out national masala. Basically occupy the territory vacated by yesterday's tabloids Blitz & Current. And don't carry any ideological baggage like Tehelka.