Sandhya Raju

What drove me to write on this is two things - a post by my journo friend  questioning the way we are living today and a related article that I read on happiness index and how India fares very poor in this , in the 117th place much below small countries like Bhutan.  And I just cant resist sharing the pride that I had when my son's teacher had penned in the report card that he is a happy child -  a remark that I really take more seriously than even the academics. And when we met in one of PTA, she did not forget to mention this too.   As a mother of two, I had always been firm that academics will not be on top of my agenda and that I would rather see my child being a sensible thinker and being humane rather than a topper. Now coming back to being happy, happiness is a relative term and can there even be a yardstick to measure it? For me, happiness is measured by the smiles per day, and it helps me also do a quick che...

For the generation that went to school in the late 80's , skill development may not be a new term. At least for me, am able to relate to this all new buzz word, quite instantly. Rewinding to the school days, I remember we used to have one dedicated period a week called SUPW - Socially Useful Productive Work. We had the options to choose from carpentry to plumbing ; embroidery to various other art and craft work. It used to be more of  fun coupled with learning and a period we used to look forward to relax.  But sadly, the race for engineering and other professional courses diluted the need to carry further such skill based learning. Down the line, as the education system started aping westernisation, we have lost track of some of the basic skills that the school prepared us for. Today schools are more like factories producing ranks than imbibing conceptual learning or values that are essential. The plight of the colleges/ universities need no...

Reproducing the content that I wrote sometime back for one of the online property portal..... -- Much like the e-commerce, online realty portals is gaining a lot of traction with competition extremely heating up and portals trying to stay afloat with constant innovation.   For instance, when the Chennai based IndiaProperty.com announced the 3D interactive Virtual Property tour, commonfloor quickly followed suit. While the features and apps might not be much of a differential factor, what would probably put a portal in the lead position is the number of projects that they are able to list under any new feature. It is after all a number game here too. Realty portals are also quick movers in using technology. While the debate on the use of drones for commercial use will sooner or later gain momentum, online realty portals like IndiaProperty.com have already been putting drones to good use for video reviews of listed projects. Using drone cameras, one can...

For long I used to avoid having green tea at any of the coffee/client meetings that I have, for some reason I had an aversion towards it when I tasted it once just for the heck of it. the bitter taste did not interest me much, until one fine day I had an opportunity to host the Glendale Green tea launch in the city.  Most of the people who consume green tea either have it for health reasons or for making a statement. But how authentic is your green tea? How many of us do really know how to make an authentic green tea?? Gets you interesting.. Read on..... The green leaf of tea plant is highly oxidative, meaning it absorbs oxygen very fast and change its chemical constituent. When the tea leaves are subject to Oxidation the tea becomes Black tea which gives Reddish brown liquor with aroma of Tea. Whereas if we arrest the oxidation process of the tea leaves by a process called ‘Fixation Process” the colour of the tea leaves remain green and we get green tea. Since the oxid...

So all you men out there, with Neha Dupia, Mugdha Godse calling, you will experience Gillette Mach 3 atleast once for sure. Such will be the power of the campaign and i admire the way this campaign has been planned. When i saw the TVCs i did not pay much attention to the details nor the campaign bit, till i read it in CT. What better way than this perfect PR opportunity for the brand to reach out to the TG. For long, i have always wondered on the understanding of PR beyond press releases and X xX column coverages. This will be a classic case study on what a well thought out PR campaign can do to a brand. A creative thought of a survey, an intelligent use of the survey results and voila...Shave India Movement. After all women prefer clean shaven looks , get one right now.

The Golden globe award for A R R ; 10 Oscar nominations - real excitement on air! But the flip side which hits me the title "slum dog" the film shows the dark side of India - 'the slums' to the whole world not wholly an Indian film to Oscars So what are we excited about? ARR for sure, no doubt about it, if the sound designer gets recognised, yes a feather in the cap to already acclaimed technical competence we have. Beyond that i dont see any reason why we need to create so much hype for a film made by Mr. Danny Boyle going to oscars, (ofcourse produced by our Anil Kapoor). Thats we, the people.......

The news of Ramalingam Raju confessing fraud and submitting resignation sends in shock waves to many. Here is a man who suddenly wakes up to his consciecne and admits to manipulating the balance sheet. It leaves me wondering as to how something of this sort can be covered up for a long time now and the Satyam board is clueless. A brand that was respected so much over the years ; the company that contributed to the economy , a brand which Satyam employees were proud of serving .... and one fine morning goes topsy turvy leaving behind a big debate on corporate governance.Will this development shake the confidence and trust levels in IT industry? A topic to debate....