KACHARAGADLA

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gestures as he speaks during an event to launch an initiative to bolster start-ups in New Delhi on January 16, 2016 As we stand at the cusp of 2017, it's time to gather one’s thoughts regarding the year that passed us by. For startups in India, 2016 proved to be the year for consolidation and transition, where entrepreneurial mindset metamorphosed from a gold rush-like mentality into an ecosystem where preference is being given to quality over quantity. Even though the velocity of capital flowing in has slowed down, the quality of work being completed with was a tad higher. The spectrum of innovation by startups expanded across many verticals of the Indian economy. During the year, Indian startups experienced numerous moments that made this ecosystem vibrant and tested its inhabitants for survival; this resulted in a year that was rather a memorable one. Startup and Standup India This scheme was launched amidst a lot of fanfare on 16 Ja

Now that Christmas is over, we find ourselves in the strange no-man’s-land that exists between the excitement of the Holidays and the start of the new year. Offices are closed, clients are on vacation, and entrepreneurs are often faced with the strange and frightening prospect of free time. If you’re like me, you might find adjusting to this excess of free time a little frustrating. After all, any disruption to a well-established routine can cause heartburn for Type-A personalities. Well, fear not my fellow Type-A entrepreneurs. I have the solution to this pernicious problem. Over the years, I’ve found that the trick to making the most of this week is to approach it with a sense of purpose, putting real effort into relaxing and recharging. Go offline Real relaxation is difficult to achieve, due in no small part to the constant deluge of information to which we subject ourselves. Email, text, Slack messages, and social media notifications fire off in a regular cade

Having a unique company voice has become more important in recent years. Companies big and small struggle to find the right tone of voice to use on social media, in content marketing campaigns, in advertisements, when being interviewed by the press, and even in personal interactions. Anything that negatively affects the overall brand voice is problematic. Whether it’s a leaked video of a CEO arguing with an employee or a spokesperson for a brand making bigoted comments online, everything public about your company can affect its reputation. How important is finding the right brand voice? Every company must determine the right tone to set for themselves. While beer companies can get away with humorous advertising and social media campaigns, security companies would be panned for using that tone since most people don’t find the idea of having their identity stolen funny. Some companies are good at taking advantage of trending topics and current events by using them in their soci

A bitcoin is essentially a digital token or code mimicking a virtual currency. With India's recent  demonetization , the volume of bitcoins being traded there has substantially increased to nearly two times its prior levels, pushing its value to new highs. Since the early days of demonetization, bitcoin prices in India have been hovering in an upper range of $866 to $896 a piece; in a mere 18 days after the demonetization speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the price of bitcoins on Zebpay, which claims to have over 130,000 users, had surged from $757 to $1,020 (per bitcoin), whereas in the U.S. (the benchmark market for most cryptocurrencies), bitcoins are trending at $770 apiece, marking a clear premium on the Indian bitcoin exchanges. Some part of this price buoyancy in bitcoins can be attributed to market-making initiatives of Indian exchanges. In order to maintain a tight order book, exchanges increased the bitcoin price when there was high demand. Post-demonetiza

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gadget reviewer. As a kid, my favorite reading material, in addition to American comic books and manga, were video game review magazines like GamePro and EGM. When I got to high school and started making my own money, I began spending most of my paychecks on gadgets. I still remember dropping $800 (my entire month's earnings as a teen) on an Archos PMA (portable media player), which was basically a very ancient version of the iPad, way back in 2001. Then in 2003, I got the T-Mobile Sidekick (aka  the Danger Hiptop , rebranded for no particular reason because U.S. phone carriers like to interfere with every product), which was sort of a spiritual ancestor to the Android operating system. Anyway, long story short: I am a gadget geek, and I've been very fortunate to be able to write about gadgets for a living right now. Because I live just an hour away from Shenzhen --  hardware capital of the world  -- I have gotten my