Jas Personal Blog
Archive for March, 2009
When Atlas Shrugged
Mar 12th
Atlas Shrugged
Recession has had its effect in strangest of places. Economist has posted how in this turbulent time, college students approaching Ayn Rand’s legendary ‘Atlas Shrugged‘ novel. When biggest of the pillars of a highly relied upon system start crumbling, its natural for the new generation to have ideological shifts and their questioning of the earlier established philosophies.
THE ECONOMIST — Reviled in some circles and mocked in others, Rand’s 1957 novel of embattled capitalism is a favorite of libertarians and college students. Lately, though, its appeal has been growing. According to data from TitleZ, a firm that tracks bestseller rankings on Amazon, an online retailer, the book’s 30-day average Amazon rank was 127 on February 21st, well above its average over the past two years of 542. On January 13th the book’s ranking was 33, briefly besting President Barack Obama’s popular tome, “The Audacity of Hope.”
Economic news vs Atlas Shrugged sales
Furthermore, says The Economist, data from TitleZ.com show recent sales spikes of the book coinciding with major political events, such as the passing of the stimulus plan (see image).
The spikes, The Economist surmises, happen when people (including a handful of bloggers, politicians, and economists) notice the eerie similarities between real-life events — like the recent spate of sea pirate attacks — and the scenarios Rand described in her book.
Hmm… interesting! But there is more…
Have a look at the Google trends, we had a first spike in its search when New York Post talk about the rumor that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie may team up for ‘Atlas Shrugged’ movie. Even if novel’s sale is rising, it means there has been a rise in information about novel. But am curious to know, how much of it was by word of mouth and that too in context of philosophy and not the movie etc.
And wind up the post here is a surprise – Google trends reports that after US, it was people from India who searched the term most! Howzzat?
Note: I dont know about others but, yes, I myself am reading this very novel these days!
See related Freakonomics post and Carpe Diem post.
Obama’s effect on Indian elections
Mar 11th
Obama has become a global symbol for hope and change (for good). And with depressed economy, unfaithful leaders in power, silent but resilient people looking for a change, its but natural for Indian political parties to exploit the “Change” plank of Obama and recycle it in Indian context. For every second mention of “Hope” and “Change” in political speeches, Obama’s name somehow is being shoved into the speech. Lets see how they are doing it.
Politics in Andhra Pradesh, India
Well am in this state right now and somehow it feels that this state’s parties are the one that have been bitten the most by the Obama bug. Congress party is in power and TDP is praying for anti-incumbency swing. A famous south Actor, Chiranjeevi, has seen an opportunity to launch his new party – Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) (while still being undecided about what really his agenda is). He is the one who situationally can use the Change plank the most and he duly tries it.
Obama campaigns for Chiranjeevi
Unknown to the word ‘copyright’, PRP has gone to use what we call as Associative Marketing. Few days back I saw this billboard. Written in local language it means:
“Today, in America it’s Obama”
“Tomorrow, in Andhra Pradesh it’s going to be Chiranjeevi”.
“The only thing people expect is “Change””.
-Praja Rajyam Party (PRP)
Whoa! That is funny! Lets see what happens when prez Obama has a look at this billboard. Am sure if he does, Chiranjeevi would suddenly realise how bad the Rs is faring vs US Dollar!
Immediately following Barack Obama’s historic win in the US, Chiranjeevi had announced that he will do in Andhra Pradesh, India what Obama did in the USA and win in the elections. Now how much he really knows about Obama’s campaign and actions is really going to be interesting and hard not to laught at, only if he would spill the beans of his heart!
Mr. Chandrababu Obama
The second party in waiting (for win), TDP, has already decided to follow the grass roots movement that Obama managed to setup in the USA. And a local newspaper, Eenadu, has given all the support with this (forged) photo graph on left. I mean… leave it! Here is the link to Eenadu news article.
Both of these campaigns have acually nothing to do with Obama as a person or his ideals or even his startegy for win in elections. Its just another opportunity as seen by the opportunistic regional parties who have no idea what the cyber laws are or how they are making a joke of themselves in educated class. Worst, I dont think they will ever know!
Advani takes a clue from Obama
Coming to the national front, the largest Opposition party of India, BJP, has taken the mantra from Obama – use internet. For months now, the Post reports, a core group of political strategists, computer specialists and management graduates have been poring over Obama’s speeches and web site, his campus of change and, of course, the rhetoric of change, to nail down how Advani’s campaign can be run to inspire India’s untapped potential of young voters.The BJP seeks to project Advani as the harbinger of change who will replace this despair with hope.
‘About 100 million first-time voters will enter the election landscape next year. That is a staggering number of young people. And the Indian youth is impatient for change,’ Sudheendra Kulkarni, former journalist and one of Advani’s key strategists told the Post. ‘We want to project the image of Advani around the idea of change the same way that Obama’s message resonated with people’s hunger for change.’
LK Advani, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, has not only launched an official website in lkadvani.in targeted at pitching him as the prime minister for the upcoming elections but also launched a blog on the website in order to connect with the internet audience. He is also using aggressive Search engine marketing campaigns to promote the website. Even the ads are being targeted at causing a word of mouth effect as they are being placed at highly used sites like technorati.com. (My older blog itself had been filled with Advani ads!)
You think that very tech savvy? Hear this – Going the Obama way to reach out to millions of people, the BJP has launched Advani TV via IPTV technique to popularize Advani. In the US presidential polls, each and every step, right from Obama’s candidature acceptance speech to his victory speech was watched the world over through this technology.
Within all this mayhem, am really curious to see how these people react to the results once the elections are over!
Sources:
- http://hemanthology.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/obama-in-hyderabad/
- http://blogs.inspions.net/2008/11/15/obama-inspires-chandra-babu-too/
- http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1208950
