Kamla Bhatt Show

Elon Musk created a mild wave on May 17th 2008 at Santa Clara convention center when he drove into the auditorium in his black Tesla roadster. There was complete silence when Musk drove in his Tesla slowly into the auditorium.

The popular TV show American Idol has spawned shows everywhere including the Saratoga Idol at the annual Rotary Art Show of Saratoga in Santa Clara County in California. 12 year old Sanjana Shukla won the first place at Saratoga Idol 2008.

In the US street fairs are a great way to experience the local flavor or a town or city. In this video clip shot during San Francisco's Easter Fair on Union Street these two balloon makers were a star attraction.

Shrabani Basu is the author of "Spy Princess: Noor Inayat Khan," an Indian-American spy,who was killed by the Germans during World War-II. Noor is the great, great, great, grand-daughter of Tipu Sultan, an 18th century Indian ruler.

Maya Organics is a Bangalore-based retail organization with a difference. In this video clip Solomon, who heads Maya Organics explains their organization's business model and their recent round of funding they received in late 2007. They also opened their first retail stores with a very catchy title "MO" in Bangalore in 2007.Why is Maya Organics different? They work with Indian traditional artisans and handicraft workers and help in three ways: first, they help preserve the traditional handicraft knowledge and culture; second Maya Organics helps with product designs and third they help handicraft workers get better prices for their products.

Adobe's AIR and Flex applications help in creating rich Internet applications. In part-2 of this demo Raghunath Rao from Adobe's Bangalore office provides an excellent overview of AIR and Flex and also shares tips on how to become a certified Flex programmer. Raghu also shares tips on where to look for information on Flex and AIR.In the demo section Raghu walks us through Anthropologie, a US-based clothing company's rich internet applications and points out the various options and ways in which a user can search Anthropologie's catalog.

In early January 2008 Ratan Tata unveiled "Nano" in New Delhi, India. Dubbed as the "people's car" Nano is priced at $2500, and has created lot of buzz and interest in India and at the international level. Suddenly buying a car is no longer an expensive proposition for many in India. The launch of Nano has also put a spotlight on innovation and entrepreneurship in India and marketing to the bottom of the pyramid, a term that is strongly associated with Marketing guru Prof. Prahlad. It should come as no surprise that Prof. Prahlad was an advisor to the Tatas Nano project.I was in New Delhi the week Tata's "Nano" was unveiled. I caught up with Dhiraj, who lives in New Delhi to find out what the thought of the "Nano." The "nano" is India's equivalent to the American Model T introduced by Frod Motors exactly 100 years ago. Just like Model T revolutionized the USA, I bet the Nano will herald a new age in India. This video is recorded in Hindi.

Change is the only constant in India these days. Change in some places like Bangalore is happening at such a fast pace that it is often difficult to keep pace with it.The IT industry in some ways has fuelled this change in Indi. In this video clip you will meet Babaji, who is a security guard with a difference. He also doubles as a record keeper for this start-up company. He has learnt how to use a PC and keeps tracks of the workers on an Excel spreadsheet.

Adobe's rich internet application tools like Flex and AIR help create nifty and user friendly websites. In part-1 of the demo Raghunath Rao of Adobe's Bangalore office gives an excellent overview of Flex and AIR and also takes us through Sony Ericsson's mobile site for India.This video was shot in Bangalore, India.If you are interested in finding out about Adobe's India plans you might want to listen to this audio interview with CEO Shantau Naryen of Adobe on The Kamla Bhatt Show.

David Clayman is the second person who is waiting in line to buy the iPhone in New York. Originally, David did not intend to stand in line to buy the phone....but then he changed his mind. He wants to draw attention to an oragnization that he is working for called Taproot Foundation. 

Who gets New York's first iPhone?  Greg Packer that is who will become the proud owner of the "god" phone tomorrow, June 28, 2007. I went down to 59th Street and Fifth Avenue where the Apple Store is located to talk to Greg.

If you go to Mumbai, then you might want to try shopping for clothes at Mangaldas Market, near Crawford Market in town, as South Bombay is known.Mangaldas market is located right behind the main lane, where Badsha Kulfi and A-Z store are located. Take the narrow, crowded lane where A-Z store is located and within 100 meters into the lane you will find the doors to this large indoor textile market. Inside you will find clothes, textile, material in various prints, patters and colors. Bargaining is the way to shop in this awfully crowded, but great market. Prices of clothes are here are generally much cheaper than what you might find in other parts of Mumbai.Browse around the market first and then decide what you want to buy. Enjoy your shopping in Mangaldas Market.

We bring you an exclusive product demo of Mango Technologies, a new Bangalore- based mobile product and services company. In this video clip Sunil explains his company's mobile application framework for mobile handsets. Mango Technologies has built a lightweight, modular application framework (they call it MangoMMI) that reduces engineering effort and time spent on development and integration of mobile handsets. The way they explain it, embedded engineers will not be required to create new flavors of cell phones instead UI folks can use their application framework and quickly design new flavors of cell phones. Telecom companies are constantly churning out new cell or mobile handsets and the cost for developing each cell phone is pretty high. Mango Technologies window-based mobile application for low-cost mobile phones is currently in beta, and is being tested by a couple of OEMs and telecom companies for their mobile handsets. You can also listen to a podcast interview with Sunil and Lekh Joshi, co-founders of Mango Technologies.

Traditional craftsmen are a fast disappearing breed in India I suspect. While some traditional crafts are being revived, others I suspect are quietly disappearing from the Indian landscape. But, there are some who are tenously hanging in there because there is sufficient demand for them (enough South Indian kids are learning to play the veena and that is where the demand comes from) to keep going. That is the slot where Raju, the veena maker probably fits in.I spotted  Raju a few times during my infrequent forays to Subbamma Stores in Gandhi Bazaar, Basvangudi in Bangalore. His shop is a locted in a narrow lane that sees a fair amount of traffic, but Raju seldom looks up and instead is totally absorbed in his work. You can catch him sitting crosslegged in the little proch outside his shop surrounded by veenas in various stages of completion. Besides the veena, Raju also makes violins although they come semi-finished stage from Kanpur.The veena store was started by Raju s father, and Raju has been working there since he was in high school.

If you go to Bangalore and happen to be in Basavangudi in South Bangalore then do make a trip to Subbamma Stores aka Srinivasa Condiments. Located in a small lane behind the main Gandhi Bazar Road, Subbamma has been a fixture in this area for over 60 years. A foodie's paraides, this small store that has largely remained unchanged, sells a whole range of South India snacks and condiments ranging from congress and communist kadalaikai or peanuts to coconut burfi, poli, muruku, appalams, pickles, mixture and chips. Besides Subamma, Basavangudi is also home to Brahmin's Cafe and Vidyarthi Bhavan two of the oldest tiffin places of Bangalore. Both these places serve some of the best idlis, dosas, kesari bath and coffee in the city. These are the two places to go if you want a fix of the real deal in food. Other eating joints to check out include Dwaraka, SLV and Adigas, which is a chain of resturants wiht branches in different parts of Bangalore like Jaya Nagar, Malleshwaram etc. Basvangudi, along with Malleshwaram are two of the older neighborhoods of Bangalore. Both these areas beara strong resemeblance to Mambalam or T.Nagar in Madras/Chennai or Dadar/Matunga area in Bombay/Mumbai.

If you go to Mumbai probably one of the must-do things in your travel plans is to visit the Gateway of India, right opposite the Taj Hotel. The Gateway of India, an The Indo-Saracenic monument is a 26 feet arch that overlooks the Arabian Sea. This was the arch, which millions of passenger saw from their boat or ship, and this was the arch through which the last British army contingent left after India got its independence in 1947.The monument was built to commemorate King George V and his wife Queen Mary visit to India in the early 1900s.

If you go to Mumbai, take a ride in a victoria around downtown Mumbai. Vitoria is an open horse-drawn carriage that look very similar to the horse drawn carriages you find in the Central Park area in Manhattan. The carriages or tanga (Hindi) in Bombay are not as spiffed up as the New York ones, but they are definitely worth a ride. Hope on to one and ride up and down the sea facing road right outside the Taj Hotel in Colaba, and other streets in the neighborhood.The victoria is supposedly named after Queen Victoria of England.

If you go to Mumbai then one of the must-see places to eat is Bade Miya in Colaba. As you can see in this vide clip Bade Miya is a roadside joint, a typical Bambiya eating joint as Raju my guide to Bombay mentions in the clip. Raju is a die-hard foodie, who showed me around Bombay and introduced me to Badshah Kulfi, Bade Miya, and other eating joints.Bade Miya is located right behind the Taj Hotel in a small lane, and comes alive in the evenings, and food is served well after midnight.

Dilli Haat is located near INA market and not too far from Safdurjung and AIMS hospital. Dilli Haat is open from 10 in the morning until late night, and there is an entrance fee that you need to pay to enter Dilli Haat.Most cab and auto drivers know where Dilli Haat is, and if they do not tell them to take you to INA market and you can ask for directions from INA market to Dilli Haat.

Connaught Place, or CP,  in New Delhi is a favorite tourist destination for shopping and eating.  In this video clip you can get a brief idea of what CP looks like.

Ugadi, or New Year was celebrated on 19th and 20th of March 2007. The reason why some celebrated it on the 20th was because there was a partial solar eclipse on March 19th, and that by some is not considered as a promising beginning for the New Year.In this video clip shot in Bangalore at Leela Rao s catering facilities, the local Hindu priest performs an elaborate Ugadi puja. Notice how they break the coconut, and how the priest squishes a lemon with the heel of his palm. Notice also the rice paintings or kolam on the floor. Ugadi is the name for the New Year in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

If you go to Delhi, here is a video clip of where to shop. Any travel guide will tell you that Cottage Emporium on Janpath Road near Connaught Place is one of the places to go shopping. The correct name for the store is The Central Cottage Industries Emporium, but is often referred to as Cottage Emporium. This is a government approved handicraft and textile store, which is a veritable treasure trove of jewelry, silks, artifacts, shawls, furniture, carpets etc. Until a few years ago, Cottage was located in a different building on Janpath road. This was a smaller, and a much nicer place. The new store is located in a multi-storey building, where parking space is in constant short supply. You might want to factor that in when you go to shop at the Cottage.

If you go to Delhi, here is a useful piece of travel information about where to shop. One word: Dilli Haat. That is where you should head if you are strapped for time, and need to buy gifts etc from Delhi. This is like one big Indian bazaar or market, where you can shop for traditional handicrafts, textiles, shawls etc.In this video clip a traditional craftsman from Rajasthan demonstrates his puppets or kathputhlis as they are known in Hindi. Note the little boy Sonu towards the end of the clip, who did not want to be left behind and put a special show for the video camera. Rajasthan, the desert state of India is known for its color and the wonderful artifacts and textiles. If you can t make it Rajasthan, you can get a glimpse of the state at Dilli Haat.

If you go to New Delhi as a first time traveler here are some practical tips from Alice E. Backer.New Delhi is the capital of India and is often a gateway for first time travelers in India. We caught up with Alice in New Delhi on December 2006. In this video clip Alice offers tips right from hiring a cab at the airport to where the Internet cafes are located. She also has some shopping tips and gives an enthusiastic thumbs up to Dilli Haat.Technorati tags: travel tips, new delhi, india

Dilli Haat in New Delhi is a wonderful place to shop and catch some entertainment. In this video clip you can see a group of Rajasthani folk singers and dancers.

Scoop. You saw it first here about Motvik, a new start-up company in the media space. In this video demo watch how your camera phone can stream live video clip to your laptop.Bangalore-based Motvik  is launching its alpha version of its product WWIGO (pronounced vigo ) which means Webcam Where I Go  today. Go over to the second clip...and watch another demo of how the camera phone is used away from your laptop or PC. You are free to roam and take video and stream them live on your laptop.  

Scoop. You saw it first here about Motvik, a new start-up company in the media space. Bangalore-based Motvik  is launching its alpha version of its product WWIGO (pronounced vigo ) which means Webcam Where I Go  today. Forget your webcam and wired connection. The way WWIGO works is you turn your blue-tooth camera phone into a webcam and use it on your laptop or PC. In this video demo watch how your camera phone can stream live video clip to your laptop. The company is founded by four young engineers who previously worked in mobile and multimedia space. They have worked on multimedia products for some of the top-tier handset vendors in the world. One of the co-founders is Thiyagarajan (Rajan) whom I interviewed a couple of weeks ago about Mobile Monday. Rajan is also the co-founder and organizer of Mobile Monday in Bangalore.

Sanjay Swamy, CEO of mCheck, a Bangalore-based mobile commerce company that wants to turn your cell phone into an ewallet. That is right turn your cellphone to pay for your groceries, phone or order for that favorite pizza of yours. We caught up with Sanjay on a Sunday morning at mChek's Bangalore office, where he gave us a demo of how mCheck payment works, and shopping on the phone.

On February 1, 2006 Yahoo! India unveiled its regional portal in seven different languages including Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Punjabi and Marathi among others.In this short video clip George Zacharias, Managing Director of Yahoo! India talks about the regional portals.

p>We were up bright and early at Chetan Maini s place in Bangalore to talk about his company and see a demo of  REVA, India's first Electric Vehicle (EV) In this video clip Chetan, who is  Deputy Chairman and CTO of REVA,  gives us a demo of the car. This car in the clip is a customized edition of a new model.  REVA is currently testing the waters  for a convertible model of their car. This model is called Zephyr.REVA recently made news when it received $20 million in funding from a bunch of California investors.REVA is located in Bangalore. REVA is currently available only in Bangalore, but the company plans to roll out the car in other parts of the country soon.Stay tuned, we also have an interview with Chetan where he talks about his passion for cars, the REVA story etc.