Indian Real Estate Sector

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 13 Jul 2012 03:13

Even if we bring the mountain to mohammad, tsunami hit beach REs will continue to scare aam working class. Consider chennai RE values.. ridiculous property value hike. I guess that was the reason we went ocean fall/rise discussion.. valid to an extent.

OT thread has become On Topic thread, btw

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 13 Jul 2012 05:07

Bade-saar, I was referring to Technocity - the current govt haven't yet approved a master plan, despite almost all the land being allocated to folks like TCS, Infy and ASB! But Smartcity falls into similar bucket (except it is more painful to watch, what with riskier capital and coalition dharma dramas) due to the current and past govts sleeping on the wheel.

The problem with IT has always been this: without initial Govt hand-holding (at both infra and policy level), nothing is going to take off, whatever the snake-oil guys from Gulf whisper in our ears about "have land, will raise capital". It has been the case with Bangalore (Keonics) as well as Hyderabad (Hitec). Without a master plan for a planned IT zone, existing A-class anchor clientele and revenue roadmap, any project is going to struggle.

In a previous post, I listed a few factors that convinced the Daimyo of the Prefecture. Bangalore, Hyd, Pune and NCR were studied with great care before the team rode out of the gates of East Fort. The preparation took so many years and several policy execution iterations before anyone was convinced. Some real hard work by babus (retired ones too) to implement stuff. There was a media gag all around and people stuck to it.

No investor is going to do the hermit-crab act of "have shell? will crawl in", saar. Only certain coalition partners and the entire malayalam DDM believes such stories. As I listed (and IIRC rohitvats-saar has also said before) in my prev post - the question of moving to a Tier2 city is less about lower expenses (facility or salary) at this point for product MNCs and bigger consulting firms. Reason being Tier1 cities has economies of scale and mature ecosystems. So Bangalore easily has volumes of cheaper warm-shell Class A office space than any Tier2 city.

Of course, the first wall has been breached, I am positive things will get better for the state!

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 13 Jul 2012 05:19

I agree it is quite an uphill task for dreamers of tier-2 places to even think of competing with Blr. But if there is no shell at all available at short notice, then the attraction becomes even less. But smaller product companies, especially home grown ones may want to locate in tier-2 for cost reasons. Isn't that what happens in massa ? Maybe, we do not have such a mature market to do homegrown variety startups.

In the case of Smart City I have assumed the ME shiekhs are just playing landlords, since GoK does not have the means to jump start this on their own, nor can it attract local capital.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 13 Jul 2012 06:07

Even start-ups tend to cluster around Tier1 centers in India. Particularly the much-desirable R2I folks with huge front lobes like our vina-saar

The answer to these questions are neither short nor sweet as malayalam media portrays.

I sort of felt cold about the Smartcity chatter, due to one reason - publicity. These things are to be done away from chatter-media.

btw, GoK has done a pretty good job of jump starting and attracting institutional investors (eg: state banks) in raising capital for Phases I, II and III of Technopark. However sheikhs are special, thanks to "coalition dharma" and the edges of Kerala politician's universe ending somewhere in the middle-east. We got lucky with the Prefecture's new castle I was mentioning above, because we had an MP who is comfortable with duking it out in Colbert Report and has name recognition beyond Middle-east

vina · Post by **vina** » 13 Jul 2012 08:17

hnair wrote:The problem with IT has always been this: without initial Govt hand-holding (at both infra and policy level), nothing is going to take off, whatever the snake-oil guys from Gulf whisper in our ears about "have land, will raise capital". It has been the case with Bangalore (Keonics) as well as Hyderabad (Hitec). Without a master plan for a planned IT zone, existing A-class anchor clientele and revenue roadmap, any project is going to struggle.

True. True. The problem with TVM , even Kochi is that it is lot less cosmopolitan than say BLR, Pune, Hyd and of course NCR . It will be very difficult to get a lot of outsiders to move there. Chennai is sort of an exception. Chennai , despite whatever ,was one of the "big 4" (remember BLR and HYD are STILL 2nd tier according the Income Tax folks and were really so until very recently, okay, BLR is tier 1, don't know about HYD, maybe sorta there, but not yet there) and in addition, Chennai is the "silent" 900lb Gorilla in IT/Vity. It is just that for long , it never got the self seeking attention of BLR . Hyd is really an also ran poodle that yells, yip-yip , far behind, long after the big dogs, BLR and Chennai have left it in the dust , but it still sort of runs.

Chennai , despite HQ being in Mumbai is the home of TCS! TCS is an out and out hard core Chennai company and for long, TCS profits were larger than the revenues of Infy and Wipro COMBINED. Infy and Wipro outperformed TCS for close to a decade and a half and about the time TCS went public, TCS pulled up their socks and are now opening space between themselves and their Bangalore rivals.

Oh, and another pure Chennai based big dog is CTS! They too have performed remarkably in the past decade and the half and have now overtaken the 85 percenters and are snapping at the heels of Revered Co. TCS and CTS (which really sounds like a re-arragement of TCS, which it really is..) are hard core Chennai companies . Folks from the Mid 90s will remember the 10s of TCS campuses strewn all over Chennai and the former Dun & Bradstreet operating out of a small premises there.

Both TCS and CTS are firing on all cylinders and at this rate, Chennai is going to give BLR a run for the money in IT/Vity. The IT/vity pool (ok, I will be very very politically incorrect here .. primarily of Tam Brahms) of Chennai was large, very big sized and right there. Most other places wont have the Chennai like ready made skill base to make up for a rather more "regional" / less cosmopolitan make up. That is the problem with Coimbatore as well.

It is not without reason, the only place that gives the real heebie-jeebies and fire storms of "outrage" to the Karnataka folks (and also KL folks)on any issue is TN, which is the 900lb Gorilla . Not AP , which is regarded with amused indulgence.

And yes, Chennai too has it's good share of product companies now, with the Tidel park and all those guys, including internet based ones (ebay, Amazon, etc..)

pradeepe · Post by **pradeepe** » 13 Jul 2012 09:50

Chennai is the "silent" 900lb Gorilla in IT/Vity. It is just that for long , it never got the self seeking attention of BLR . Hyd is really an also ran poodle that yells, yip-yip , far behind, long after the big dogs, BLR and Chennai have left it in the dust , but it still sort of runs.
..
It is not without reason, the only place that gives the real heebie-jeebies and fire storms of "outrage" to the Karnataka folks (and also KL folks)on any issue is TN, which is the 900lb Gorilla . Not AP , which is regarded with amused indulgence.

All the more better having multiple centres come up and compete with each other no. Why the condescending tone...

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 13 Jul 2012 10:45

vina-saar, "cosmopolitanism" is a rather ill-defined, subjective term and quite frankly, is not actionable. Some of us came to the conclusion that it is used to describe Bangalore's success at a very shallow level.

For example: I once felt it needed Indian chicks drowning in Mallya brew with loud music to be termed "cosmopolitan". Well, we had a pleasant surprise. Goes like this - we always had heavy tourist inflow to Trivandrum since 70s. You got live band and sea-shacks with tattoo parlors forever. Does that make a place cosmopolitan? Apparently it does - when some of the Daimyo's captains (I mentioned about above) landed from the Valley for castle inauguration, they digged their Kovalam stay, euro-trash company and easy commute to Technopark (hardly 20 minutes). Heard some grumble about "difficulties with hotel commute in other Indian centers"

So we just ignored "cosmopolitanism" from that point and went for the basics. In Lord Padmanabhan we trust

(Chennai was the 900lb Goliath to our needle-necked Indrans in the Prefecture saga. But Indrans had the Rohirrim riding out that day in perfect discipline. Very lucky for us)

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 13 Jul 2012 11:00

hnair wrote:So we just ignored "cosmopolitanism" from that point and went for the basics. In Lord Padmanabhan we trust

On this "cosmopolitan" stuff. I know a senior chap in my company who relocated (he made the statement of "50% of Bangalore think that they are in US, and other 50% uses this feeling to fleeze money out of them") to Chennai. His reason was that Chennai had pretty much good facilities, and does not have this "cosmopolitan" baggage attached to it. He was a Tamilian so that helped even better.

Other cases I know are people who shifted to Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. Again comfort factor for them was good facilities, plus the added benefit of part of the mother state. No "cosmopolitan" baggage there as well.

The catch how ever is.. All these folks were in the 34-40 year bracket, had families and were not the so called "hep" crowd. Folks who did a good job at office, went back home and enjoyed life with their families. On a week end, perhaps a small dining out, a movie and temple/church visits. In case of the Keralite folks, the trip back home was re-routed via a local bar (simple no-frills setup), where their friends also landed up

.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 13 Jul 2012 11:14

Sachin-saar, the thing with hep crowd is this - they do not matter in decision making at the highest levels. India provides so many hungry alternatives in the place of hep crowds

I have seen some hard-hitting stuff that evokes shrill screams from the "heppers". Like corporate HQ edicts saying "everyone shift to XYZ boondock office or get lost". Hep crowd meekly follows and try to find paradise in the new place. It is a pathetic sight to see posturings before and after such ass-whoops.

vina · Post by **vina** » 13 Jul 2012 11:24

Sachin wrote:On this "cosmopolitan" stuff. I know a senior chap in my company who relocated (he made the statement of "50% of Bangalore think that they are in US, and other 50% uses this feeling to fleeze money out of them") to Chennai.

Well, all the M.Techs Uncles and I dare say some of the MSc types (maybe not Bade Mian, who seems to have been adopted by the undergrad kids) always said that that B.Techs think that they are already in the US! There was a culture shock and a very "mofussil" vs "Inglees/Urban" for the M.Tech unkils who unfortunately happened to land up in the B.Tech hostels. They hated every second of it and wanted to run back to the M.Tech hostels at the first opportunity (Bade Mian stayed, probably the reason he fitted in better with the undergrads).

It is probably something similar. That Chennai guy probably was an "M.Tech Unkil" misfit in Bangalore . The majority of the young kids would love to move to Bangalore over Chennai any day (and I dare say Kochi and TVM as well)

His reason was that Chennai had pretty much good facilities, and does not have this "cosmopolitan" baggage attached to it. He was a Tamilian so that helped even better.

Well, this Tamilian, would run from Chennai and never ever considered staying there ever, though I was born there. The nicest thing about Chennai is the Madrassa and of course the culture-vulture thing and the Music Academy. But dude, terrible weather (until recently , probably mid 90s, Bangalore had far better infra) and anyways, the quality of housing in bangalore is still better than Chennai i think.

Dunno about TVM and Kochi. I guess with all the "gelf" money and the blaring adverts I hear on the radio from the Puravankaras, Sobhas et al,it may be decent.

vina · Post by **vina** » 13 Jul 2012 11:29

hnair wrote:Sachin-saar, the thing with hep crowd is this - they do not matter in decision making at the highest levels. India provides so many hungry alternatives in the place of hep crowds

Well, that is a simplification. That top down decision making will see big costs going forward , especially in attrition and ability to find people with the correct skill sets. The top levels know that very well.

I have seen some hard-hitting stuff that evokes shrill screams from the "heppers". Like corporate HQ edicts saying "everyone shift to XYZ boondock office or get lost". Hep crowd meekly follows and try to find paradise in the new place. It is a pathetic sight to see posturings before and after such ass-whoops.

Well, the Shogun's prefecture in Bangalore had the "bright" idea of centralizing their "expensive" rented offices into a biiiiiig "owned" office in North Bangalore and nearly paid the millions of dollahs on it. There were howls from the employees (come on, most of the IT/Vity types live in S. Bangalore) and how that idiotic commute to N. Bangalore across all that traffic is a show stopper and will see a huge spike in attrition. That plan was called off and also of course ,that land buying thing turned out to be not "kosher" with the land being benami/whatever/ not clear title etc. So all of them stayed put where they were.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 13 Jul 2012 17:55

well.. BLR has more than IT.. defence labs and other industries as well. The most important infra for ITvity are electricity, high bandwidth data, and a decent cool place to sit and work. any Indian city can pretty much get these worked out if they apply common sense. I am leaving out water, and other amenities etc.. out here on lower priority.. if one considers KL, it can be made a large BLR.

KL needs to bump up, and start inviting or weight around the Thorium power plants.. abundance of beach sand and perhaps collect extra tax money to gov and other states to use its Th sands. Th reactor recently went successful at kalpakkam is valid sign for thinking ahead.

KL needs to provide these, and people from all places and including BLR and Chennai will flock KL, for its beauty of the place. jmt./. but willing by malloos considering their land on cosmopolitan terms.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 13 Jul 2012 18:31

Personally I would prefer living in Bangalore as well. Folks are far more gentle and accepting of differences in others. In Chennai even the Tharkari wallah is like Bhim bagawan and regularly has fights with the customers! Even regular ones, seems part of the landscape. For a long time the #1 problem with Chennai was water. This is what allowed the other metro's Bangalore and Hyderabad to catch up. The entire hoity-toity crowd from Chennai decamped to Bangalore in the 1990's due to this. Nothing like waking up every day at 3 AM bucket in hand for the water trickle to get your daily reality check. At some point Chennai has to improve its attitude and move on from the aragaytrams and tamilzh songs to something a bit more open to foreign influences.

The vast majority of immigration into Chennai is from the rest of TN however and those folks bring their 'rural' sensibilities with them. In Bangalore the majority of Kanadiga's don't try to crowd into Bangalore for some reason. If they did the Hep crowd would be shut down in a heartbeat as well. This is an advantage KL has IMO, zero internal migration, except maybe TVM.

vina · Post by **vina** » 13 Jul 2012 18:40

Bangalore the majority of Kanadiga's don't try to crowd into Bangalore for some reason

Well, like everything else, this one is a stereotype. But the average Kannadiga is lot more civilized and less rough around the edges than a Tamil or a Mallu.

In terms of abrasiveness, nothing approaches the Madras folks. Okay, except Dilli maybe. Dilli has a greater sense of entitlement, that is all.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 13 Jul 2012 19:42

I dunno about the 'gentleness' of rural Kannadiga. The most scared I have ever been was in the midst of a riot in Hubli and Dharwad in the same week! Those are rough towns. If you do down to Madivalla next to Koramangala you can feel the full effects of some of this crowd. They don't seem to overwhelm the city of Bengluru however. Must be the effect of the Belgaum and Coorg crowd in Bengluru. The Coorgi's are by far the gentlest and most cultured folk I have ever met even if a bit insular. Two for my close relatives are married to Coorgi's and I must say they know how to have a good time, old school. Lots & Lots of Coorgi's in Bengluru. Rural TN has simply swamped Chennai. And for some reason we did not get the gentler folk from say Madura. Chennai got the hardcore types from extreme south or Krishnagiri type areas. All the politics is based around their sensibilities. The old school classy Telugu's, who used be a majority in Chennai, have been simply swept away. The Tam-Brahm continue to dominate the media and hence are very visible, but the Telegu's still own large chunk of the property in and around Chennai. I was also shocked to recently find out that Kannadiga's are #3 on the Chennai population's list! Having just beat out the Mallu's, who were once 10% of Chennai IIRC.

BTW I havn't followed this for a while but what happened to Hosur. For a While there the plan was it would develop as a twin city without the taxes and hartals of Bengluru. How come that did not work out?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 13 Jul 2012 19:43

abrasiveness... then all you have to take a ride on the chennai rick.. the auto walas are mouth full of $hit.

chennai senthamizh what it would make them or give them the baseline for that, is my gut analysis. none would like that idea though.

whereas other places, the abrasiveness is handled well by the language.. it calms things down. sometime even body language - eye growling to tongue biting, these autowalah come in a charge that you don't want to stay in that place for a second... second that with the weather.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 13 Jul 2012 20:28

This "cosmopolitanism" thing is like a brand, it is created over the ages and does not have to be 100% real, just marketable. I have lived in Malleshwaram amongst the hoity toity upper castes and it was anything but cosmopolitan or liberal.

This was way back in the 70s a kids perspective, but nevertheless felt. But Bangalore still had a different image to us, being modern and nice and clean when compared to likes of Calcutta/Madras, except places like Yeshwanthpur/Peenya area. Local Kannadigas were the nicest people I have met in all my internal migration across India during school years. This is true even in Mangalore, and a lot of them have moved to Bangalore. The low profile land shark I bought a plot in North Bangalore from is a Konkan Xtian with business roots across the state. Mostly coffee estate owners and gelf returned onlee.

Vina, except for the madrassa campus there is nothing much I would like to go to Madras for. The fun was the hostel stay there rather than the academics part. Late nights at Tarams and gup-shup with toolies among BTechs. Not just me the whole batch of MSc I knew before and after us had no issues with staying in the UG hostels except for poor food quality. Brahms was rumoured to be good all year for food. I had a sampling during our entrance exams and that was what made me choose the madrassa over other ones, only to be fooled by UG quality food...barely edible. We only looked forward to Bhatura evenings once a week.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 13 Jul 2012 21:22

>> And for some reason we did not get the gentler folk from say Madura

doesnt the elder son of the great artiste rule madurai presumably with a iron fist? he must be having his own band of merry men there.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 13 Jul 2012 22:46

He is not from Madura and is parked there cos Chennai can't stand him.

Folks there have a particularly colorful name for him.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 14 Jul 2012 00:07

KL RE prices are really shooting up actually solely because of gelf.. the worst thing is one can't just cant buy a good piece of land on normal terms.. there are always people with left pocket money to buy, and having directly landed from gelf.

I wanted a decent 10c land at good price.. and lost out a good oppty, with a gelf competitor.. while I negotiate with bank, the buggar pays advance and not just that, readies up the agreement and papers and in few days, it is all done deal.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 14 Jul 2012 00:18

Undeveloped land deals everywhere are mostly cash only transactions. Even in Blr, Kerala. Inside city limits or even places like BIAAPA areas there is conversion of agricultural land to residential land and hence parcel sizes are fixed. So it is all over the table and white only from experience. Not everywhere but in gated enclaves. I took a loan on land purchase and it all went smooth. Even the initial amount was all via NRE cheque to my surprise. I have not bought land in KL, hoping to inherit something as prices are now way overboard like 2-3 lakhs per cent, 40 km north of Kochi and another 3km away from local town.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 14 Jul 2012 00:25

I think that is why we are seeing huge increase in RE price.. and reduced tax money for the gov., and finally end up bad infrastructure policies due to lack of funds. our RE owners have this urge to make black money.. so, we are stuck.. and the next level of black hawkers are the brokers and red pill agents.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 14 Jul 2012 02:10

mr. habal, in one his nukkad post, was pointing at 30K per cent at malappuram. He thinks that place is ideal for R2I-ers. I have never been there.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 14 Jul 2012 02:49

Singha wrote:>> And for some reason we did not get the gentler folk from say Madura

doesnt the elder son of the great artiste rule madurai presumably with a iron fist? he must be having his own band of merry men there.

In TN the worst are from the Southern Districts, Kanyakumari, Thootukudi, Cuddalore, etc... Chennai Autorickshawallahs will look like Gandhi's next to them

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 14 Jul 2012 03:30

what makes them that way? are they like that even if they go home?

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 14 Jul 2012 03:31

Bade wrote:<SNIP>In the case of Smart City I have assumed the ME shiekhs are just playing landlords, since GoK does not have the means to jump start this on their own, nor can it attract local capital.

If there was ever a screwed up proposal for development, then Smart City will rank right on the top.

The objective of developing an IT-ITES centered Smart City is wrong from day one and let me tell you the biggest reason why - In Kochi Technopark, there are three types of development - (1) the office space built by the Technopark SPV (2) Co-developers which have been roped in (like L&T and Leela Group) (3) Land allotted to directly to IT/ITES companies by Technopark.

Now, from a private real estate development perspective, the development makes sense if there is some inherent demand. And limited demand is there in case of Kochi - but this demand is transient in nature. Take the L&T building for example - IIRC, most of the tower was occupied by the TCS. So, far so good. But what the Technopark has done is that it has also allotted land to TCS (and other companies) for captive development. And this means disaster for private RE Players - once these campuses are up and running, the buildings built by the private developers will fall vacant. Because there is simply no one of the scale of TCS (or WIPRO) to take up so much space. And the worst part is that government was giving land for making captive buildings as small as 50,000 sq.ft.

All this meant that private developer has no incentive to build anything - with the demand as it is low for commercial real estate, where is the demand for developing the multi-million sq.ft of commercial development in Smart City going to come from? And the timeline for development (as per contract - available online) of these assets is plain nonsense. Even Bangalore did not grow at this pace - how and where from are Smart City guys going to get the demand? Especially with Technopark playing competition next door.

Even the development plan for other components like hotel, retail and residential is not realistic. There is simply no demand for absorption of the type of development envisaged in the project.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 14 Jul 2012 03:50

vina-saar, some of the Toplevels we chatted with, believe that attrition in Tier1 places is the #1 issue they want to address and indirectly blames the "hep crowd" and a certain attraction towards banalities

So they dont see hep crowd as the solution, as they once thought.

Regarding edicts and summary evictions to boonies, I was actually referring to a couple of groans I heard down the ages from Dalda and Revered company's shifts from MGRoad and Koramangala respectively. I got great opportunity to rub it in that I ride my trusty m800 daily via their old offices to my own in CBD

I asked them why don't they leave, as these folks had pretty sale able skillsets. Well, lots of answers like "not till that promo" etc. Wished them well and left them at the busstops. Toplevels game these sort of things and as I said, there are enough capable, hungry people who are not "hep" and love free transport to the boonies.

The Biiiig Bldg story you are referring to

I had a ringside view, as the whole deal collapsed when we were scouting in the Valley. Can't go too deep, due to sensitivities on some quarters. But it so happened quite a few moons ago, dressed as a Glitter Ninja (epic failure, I know

) I sneaked into the Shogun fort's eastern most wing, to meet the Chief Gameskeeper (who keeps an eye on Shogun's castles in all the continents). Introduce myself as Trivandrum's messenger-boy and show the scrolls proving thus. He leans and looks behind me, says "where is your entourage?". Moi: "what?". Turns out a week before a delegation from Chandigarh had landed, complete with a minister to make the pitch. Later when reporting back, I was still ROTFL-ing over the phone when I mentioned this story and the dedication of other states, compared to Kerala's luke-warm approach beyond Middle-East. That is right, they send me, The Forrest Gump to negotiate with Nixon....

Anyways, I ask Chief Gameskeeper about the Biiiig bldg, as it was a concern for us, due to "economies of scale" I mentioned. He just waves lazily and says it is "just a thought". Now, what he did not know was this: a dear friend of mine was burning the midnight oil, working the papers on behalf of Biiiig Bldg (he is in their Mktg/Sales wing) and was gungho about the deal, when I talked with him before the scouting mission. My inference? Gameskeeper's Chief Arborealist in India pruned a lot of trees in the past and pruned one tree too much. As per folks who know him, that guy knows the game and how to keep hep-crowd moderately enlightened

So Arborealist had prepared plans for free ferry service of troops from South, better class of chai-biskoot etc. But what I got from my scouting is that the Gameskeeper was not worried about attrition at that point. He had more immediate concerns. He just said "endemic corruption" and hence his entertaining messengers like me. Apparently Shogun, despite his colorfulness is very finicky on keeping his nose clean on such matters.

Anyways, long story short, my personal friend@Biiig Bldg comes back dejected one day and says the Biiig Bldg deal collapsed. Did not surprise me much, as I had inferred as much from my scouting. But then, I have another dear kernail friend inside the Prefecture, who proudly claim the Daimyos listened to him and decided to axe Biiig Bldg plan, when he said he "has a house in Sakura-pur area in South, so dont want to go all the way to the Biiig Bldg".

Of course, I am still friends with both, because scouts dont have a voice of their own

Allright, I am off this topic - humble scouts hear only "This is Sparta" before the darkness.....

Bade-saar, cosmopolitanism is like "no LoC crossing", NFU type of self-imposed limitations that Tier2 folks feel about others whose (like sachin-saaar's friend says) butt seemingly has "more stars and strip" imprints than possible. Even if others point out that the stars are mosquito bites and the stripes are rashes from wearing tight jeans, they still feel uneasy. The two states who did not give a frickety-frick about cosmopolitanism are Gujarat and TN. Both are considered less preferable for the hep crowds (malayalees included). Yet they are doing REALLY well. It is as if they are not even aware of the word and is a glorious thing to be unaware of.....

I had expressed my purely personal thoughts on some aspects of "Star 'n Stripe/Union Jack" imprints in Bengaluru. I thought I might be totally off-kilter, but was pleasantly surprised, when Stan-saar later send me a research paper written by someone who studied that aspect in depth!

I believe this is what Theo-saar saw in Hubli and Dharwad (which I too saw during the '92 time and later). The angst of those who are watching the anglophiles/cosmo-types and feels left out to be exploited at liesure by the Fumble Harmer types. A certain complication in the cosmo-story that we dont want in Kerala, Bade-saar.....

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 14 Jul 2012 03:53

er, rohitvats-saar, minor errata in your post - Technopark is the Trivandrum thingy. In Kochi, the existing park is called "Infopark".

But otherwise, your assessment is what I too feel like. eg: In Trivandrum Technopark, the Leela guys got really wild - they build expensive Class A space. Then the Kerala govt goes ahead and builds cheaper Class B+ (dont know what to call it) space.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 14 Jul 2012 04:06

hnair wrote:er, rohitvats-saar, minor errata in your post - Technopark is the Trivandrum thingy. In Kochi, the existing park is called "Infopark".

But otherwise, your assessment is what I too feel like. eg: In Trivandrum Technopark, the Leela guys got really wild - they build expensive Class A space. Then the Kerala govt goes ahead and builds cheaper Class B+ (dont know what to call it) space.

Yieeooo...my bad sir, Inforpark it is. But very smart people them at both Inforpark and Technopark. Very forthcoming with information and follow-up. Unlike experience in rest of Kerala.

Sir, one very positive point about getting a private developer is the leverage these guys have in terms of marketability. A good Bangalore based developer with strong clientele in his existing IT Parks/SEZ can leverage these relationships and influence deals in favor of developments in places like Kochi or Trivandrum. Their marketing team will also fan out wide seeking requirement/demand from companies. Expect them to cover the triumvariate of HYD-BNGLR-CHN at the minimum.

Coming to the requirement of companies when choosing a city, I once did a primary survey of 100 IT/ITES Companies (big and small) in Chennai/Bangalore/Hyderabad. The biggest requirement is in terms of manpower availability and support infrastructure.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 14 Jul 2012 04:17

What is a hep crowd?

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 14 Jul 2012 04:22

@hnair saar, which north Bangalore property are you taking about? And which company?

PS: The one which starts with O?

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 14 Jul 2012 04:32

rohitvats wrote:But very smart people them at both Inforpark and Technopark. Very forthcoming with information and follow-up. Unlike experience in rest of Kerala.

Indeed! I earlier mentioned about the babu, who impressed the Prefecture's Daimyo with his speed of execution.

Also agree on your other point about marketing. IMHO,

Strong Indian realty player >>> MNC realty players with subsidiaries >>> Sheikh

The first two has unique strengths (sense of market and nimbleness around Indian policy shenanigans vs wider capital raising potential), but the last one is riskiest.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 14 Jul 2012 04:33

rohitvats-saar, send mail to moi at kovalam.beachbum at gmail. Will delete this later

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 14 Jul 2012 07:47

SaiK wrote:what makes them that way? are they like that even if they go home?

Years of Social Engineering by the Brits, then the Dravidian parties perpetual of the Victimhood... This is one group who firmly believes that they are Dravidians a separate race and the rest of the Indians/Tamils are Aryans...

A Car Driver we had recently told us "All these aryans have to be driven out of TN" This is also the group that is focus of the Koodankulam haters.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 14 Jul 2012 09:10

So, do you see that in RE specifically separating our population by race?

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 14 Jul 2012 09:46

Saik,

You are mixing it up. As hnair points out the hep crowd is flaky and pointy tailed. While we may chuckle about these folks they are Indians first and fore most and the nation belongs to them. In fact they are the ones who are making the nation rich and working their butts off. Esp. since they are the vast majority. I personally don't see the rough edges as a bad thing. Some of us on the ground live with them while in some cities you can avoid the regular folk. There are those who hate them, I'm not part of that crowd. In TN separation is not by race. First and foremost it is by caste. All the race arguments began and continue due to caste. All comments are euphemisms related to it. You can't mention caste so people spout venom in the name of race. On the ground people are treated quite horribly due to caste and this barrier prevents social mobility. It is doubtful TN/Chennai will ever be socially cosmopolitan like Bengluru for the simple reason that 80%+ remain in the lower strata. Again this is not a bad thing.

Any way enough OT.

member_23626 · Post by **member_23626** » 14 Jul 2012 09:52

Theo_Fidel wrote:Saik,

You are mixing it up. As hnair points out the hep crowd is flaky and pointy tailed. While we may chuckle about these folks they are Indians first and fore most and the nation belongs to them. In fact they are the ones who are making the nation rich and working their butts off. Esp. since they are the vast majority. I personally don't see the rough edges as a bad thing. Some of us on the ground live with them while in some cities you can avoid the regular folk. There are those who hate them, I'm not part of that crowd. In TN separation is not by race. First and foremost it is by caste. All the race arguments began and continue due to caste. All comments are euphemisms related to it. You can't mention caste so people spout venom in the name of race. On the ground people are treated quite horribly due to caste and this barrier prevents social mobility. It is doubtful TN/Chennai will ever be socially cosmopolitan like Bengluru for the simple reason that 80%+ remain in the lower strata. Again this is not a bad thing.

Any way enough OT.

Please expand this in an appropriate thread, would like to know more

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 14 Jul 2012 10:28

SaiK wrote:So, do you see that in RE specifically separating our population by race?

Saiullah, Although OT on this thread, If you look at National Geographic "Migration" Project http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com ... ia-arabia/

You can clearly see two groups mentioned in Tamil Nadu. Its no coincidence that EJ'ism is most active among these two groups. And these are the two groups that are still being demographically altered.

Earlier the justification for conversion has been victimhood/oppression/, Now it has effectively moved to a separate race AIT theory where the natives were supressed by Hindus. Add to that the campaign of showing Tamil being older than Hinduism itself. The biggest joke recently has been Thiruvalluvar and Avvaiyar has been added to this. Sad fact is even Wikipedia mentions so.. Major re writing of Tamil History is underway in Wiki... Ask any college going kid and you will hear the two race theory getting popular...

Again OT for this thread..so i will stop here.

vina · Post by **vina** » 14 Jul 2012 10:42

Theo_Fidel wrote: In TN separation is not by race. First and foremost it is by caste. ... that 80%+ remain in the lower strata. Again this is not a bad thing.

Any way enough OT.

But that is a "contrived" separation. In fact, I would say that is the legacy of the Dravidian parties hate mongering. For eg, in Kerala, where the caste system was lot more vicious than in TN, the reform movements and yes the COMMIE (bless them for that) movements for social emancipation achieved similar or better outcomes without that hate mongering and separation. Anyway OT.

But for whatever, if folks haven't seen this, they should and I think it is hilarious. It reflects very accurately atleast one strata of the TN society. I totally identify with everything there. I find that Saari Maami especially great in the newer ones.

Will copy it in Nukkad and other under burkha threads as well.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 14 Jul 2012 11:03

Vina,

Kerala has had its demons to wrestle with. AFAIK it is the only state that was divided due to caste complications. Kanyakumari district came out of that discord. So I would not say that Kerala went through it smoothly. Even now the question of Idukki and the 'half' citizens there keeps coming up.

I always try to avoid this elephant in the room. Nothing good comes of talking about it. I usually don't even mention it and just say community. But people should not pretend that bad behavior has come to an end. There is no smoke without fire. There is no reaction without action. No one who has been asked to walk out side to to drink from a water tap while 'others' get a glass in the house will ever forget it. Yes the truly egregious bad behavior has reduced and in line with that the Dravidian line has weakened but the bad behavior remains unfortunately, less in cities, a lot lot more in rural areas,......

Anyway. I promise not to talk about it anymore. Nothing against you or Sridhar but I simply will not participate in this discussion anymore.

Trully Trully end of OT.