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webbrahmin | 8 years ago | on: Fountain pen inks: the good, the bad, and the ugly (2011)

In India kids use pencil up to 4th standard. From 5th standard onward they start using pens. Buying a fountain pen and inkpot used to be a big thing back in the day. I still remember my first fountain pen. My mother purchased it for me in 1987. It used to be sort of rite of passage. We did not have gel pens in India back the. Using ball pen was strictly forbidden. The reason given was that writing with fountain pen improves handwriting. These days kids use gel pen as their first pen. Usage of fountain pens in India is dying at least in bigger cities.

webbrahmin | 8 years ago | on: One Year After India Killed Off Cash, What Other Countries Should Learn

I am not an economist or a sociologist. These are my personal observations. Ordinary citizen is not a monolith in India. Ordinary citizen can be subdivided into (with overlap) 1. Middle Class 2. Salaried Class 3. Farmers 4. Daily Wage Workers 5. Unskilled, Semi-skilled and skilled working in Unorganized sector. 6. ... and so on Different people were inconvenienced to different extent. Middle class salaried category was inconvenienced to the extent that there was a cash crunch and India being a cash economy buying stuff became difficult for a few days. The ruling party the BJP won a major state election with record margin just 4 months after demonetization. Probably a large majority was not too much inconvenienced. BJP also re-aligned with a political ally in another major state. Had ordinary people being inconvenienced as some stories in media and reports suggest BJP would have become a political pariah. A lot of money has come back to the banking system. How it happened is another long story. This has reduced bank lending rates. Banks are offering housing, business and other loans at a lower rate.

webbrahmin | 8 years ago | on: Sublime Text 3.0

I completely agree with you. I was a user of Balsamiq mock-up tool. But since they moved on to subscription model I stopped using it.

webbrahmin | 8 years ago | on: HSBC is killing my business, piece by piece 

I am from India. A startup I was part of also had a bad experience with the bank. I can't go into the details but the bottom line is that the bank branch where we had our account was absolutely uncooperative. The problem was resolved after many days of mail writing, talking to phone banking and running after the branch people.

webbrahmin | 8 years ago | on: Delete Facebook Account

My experience with deleting my LinkedIn accounnt; Tried deleting. LinkedIn responded with a message saying I have active ads running and I am the creator of a LinkedIn group. I ran an ad campaign ages back and created a group long time back. I am stuck with LinkedIn because of this. Worse than dark pattern.

webbrahmin | 8 years ago | on: How is Ruby different in Japan?

Even in Japan PHP and Java are more popular than Ruby. As per a Japanese headhunter friend of mine who works for a big placement agency there there are about 3 times more PHP jobs & 6 time more Java jobs than Ruby jobs in Japan.

webbrahmin | 9 years ago | on: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

> For the majority of the population in developed countries, and almost all of the population of developing countries, smartphones are the only computer people have or need.

Not true. I am from India. Developing country. There are 5 working people in my family. None of us can replace our notebooks with our phones. For all of us phone is for communication and notebook for work.

webbrahmin | 9 years ago | on: India raises withdrawal limit as rupee anger mounts

A middle class Indian here. Average Indian is facing some problem. Here is a list.

1. If someone has cash in hand for emergencies then he/she has to stand in a bank queue for 2-3 hours to deposit it into a bank account. 2. One has to stand in a bank queue for 2-3 hours to exchange old currency for new or to withdraw Rs 10,000 from one's account. Rs 10,000 is sufficient money to take care of basic needs for about 15 days.

3. There is a shortage of lower denomination notes. RBI received 5 million Rs 500 denomination notes yesterday. It will heal ease the problem.

I live in the National Capital Region. I have faced no problem at all. I am doing my grocery purchase online. Urban India pays it's utility bills online. There are a number of e-wallet solutions which have made online transactions easy.

I am not aware about the inconveniences faced by Indians living in rural areas. Economy in rural India is cash based. But since I have my roots in rural India I have seen many transactions happening through informal credit channel. It is not uncommon for a worker to get paid once every 3-4 months. Migrant workers often get payed by contractors at the end of their contract. The actual impact is not earth shattering.

There is a high decibel political noise around the whole thing. But as someone who has paid his taxes honestly his entire life, I welcome and support this move.

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