Modern India

The most trusted brand in India for three years in row has been Nokia. This relates to the fact that mobile phones are everywhere. And these devices are the first widespread channels to communications and Internet access in this country.

Business parks and incubators are popping up around the country in most of the metropolitan areas or the wannabees, the future metropolies. At the moment, the incubation offering is focused in land and buildings, soon it will include all services required in business incubation ecosystems.

The metropolitan cities of India have their satellites that house the big number or industrial facilities, call centers and apartment high rise & low rise buildings targeted for expatriates and fast growing upper middle class of the modern India.

Luxury India

Luxury hotels and resorts, shopping malls more modern than most in the USA or Europe, Porches and Harley Davidsons, fully equipped aprtments with all possible embedded electronics. Some people really enjoy what money can buy in India.

I read an article in local entrepreneurial magazine. More than two million people have enough extra cash to invest more than one million euro to stock or other instruments. Extra cash means that they already have nice home, more than one imported car and other basic amenities. The most expensive private house is actually in Mumbai, the cost was over one billion USD.

Here is something that surprisingly many ex-pats have not known before I told them: There is a new western style supermarket, Big Bazaar, for buying food in Vasant Kunj shopping mall. The mall itself has two malls side by side, DLF Promenade Mall and Ambiance Mall. Seems to be really hard to find any good data about it online. The Big Bazaar supermarket is undeground somewhere between the two mall buildings. You can access it by going first to the Ambience mall and continue to the right hand side, or just ask the route to the Big Bazaar. Its upstairs sells clothes etc, downstairs sells food, kitchenware, shaving gel and evertyhing else but not fresh meat or fish.

Big Bazaar in Vasant Kunj

Resort just south of Chennai

Poor India

Slums, beggars, minimum salary around 100 euros a month for legal workforce, 350 million people living for less than the absolute poverty line of 1,25 USD a day, stories about cutting arms or legs of children to make them better beggars.

By the way, I have seen hundreds of poor individuals and families who live under bridges or in small slum areas present everywhere in New Delhi. Kids play like kids play. Most of these people keep smiling. Actually, I started thinking that I cannot find as many smiling people in the streets of Finnish cities.

Mystical India

Tens of thousands of gods to worship, hundreds of thousands of places where to worship, caste system still active and kicking, girls unwanted, servants using their own doors and elevators, everyone saying that the servant quarters definitely does not need a shower. The servant quarters is usually a small room in basement with a toilet somewhere nearby.

I just watched Lagaan, the only Indian movie in BBC's list of 50 movies to see before you die. Great film. Three and half hours, like many other Bollywood movies. Story is about a cricket match between a rural village and Brittish rulers. The plot touches a lot of key traditions, culture, history and mindsets. Highly recommended.

Photos from Old Delhi and a cow in Vasant Vihar

Red Fort - Marble art with a guard:

Red Fort - Area where the ruler met common people (I almost missed the stairs):

Men without safety goggles working on marble on the street close to Red Fort:

At least three streets in Chawri Bazar were full of metal sellers. Everything you could think of. Huge valves. Steel in different shapes and sizes. How can someone move their shopping basket out from here?

Food items and spices here and there on the streets:

Metro ride from Chandni Chown (closest to Red Fort) to AIIMS (closest to Shanti Niketan) at 5 pm on Saturday. Not too bad of a crowd.

Cow encounter in Vasant Vihar during my Sunday walk. First one for me. Took three weeks of driving and walking around in Delhi to find the first one.

BTW: I love my cell phone's camera capabilities. Great photos (especially when you think it is a phone), automatic uploads, geotagging, etc.

Delhi, New Delhi, NTC - what's the difference

From a distance it was kind of hard to figure out the difference between Delhi and New Delhi. Well, not much easier from New Delhi in Delhi in NCT (National Capital Territory of Delhi). Still have to figure out if NCT is about the same as the National Capital Region that includes also Gurgaon, Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad. NCT is almost like a state, but officially a union territory. New Delhi is the capital of India, that is a starter. Population of NTC is 20+ million, Delhi 12 million and New Delhi around 200 000. Well, looks like some online sources mix the names, too. http://www.mapsofindia.com/delhi/population-of-new-delhi.html tells the population to be 11.7 million in New Delhi and later on shows New Delhi as part of Delhi to have 172 000 people. To learn more, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi

I tested the metro system in the weekend. It is clean, not overcrowded in the weekend, inexpensive, and fast compared to other means of transportation. It took 40 minutes to ride metro from Old Delhi to A.I.I.M.S station closest to Shanti Niketan and 4 kilometers auto rickshaw ride comparered to minimum of 50 minutes taxi drive. Would love it much more, if the nearest station was closer to my current home/office. I think I saw more people in Old Delhi streets in an hour than I have seen in the streets of the city of Pori in Finland (population 80 000) for couple of years.

Mix of rich, poor and everything else

I have stayed the first two weeks in the backrooms of the office, because the office is actually in a really nice apartment with four bedrooms not in use. Several long walks have helped me to learn more about the surroundings of our office. The longest was over 15 kilometers yesterday on Saturday, when I headed to Hauz Khas area.




Piknic in park in Hauz Khas area

 

  



Pigs here and there, this one 400 m from Basant Lok
market in Vasant Vihar



The sights, smell, noice, heat, people, cars, bikes, trash, auto-rickshaws, dogs, pigs, parks, houses, slums, clean streets, dirty streets, new stuff, old stuff. There is tons of dust in the air, but surfaces are in surprisingly clean condition. Everywhere I have looked, poeple have been sweeping dust and dirt away from their path to the slum hut, front yard made from marble, or any other piece of surface that gets its load of dust daily.




They live in presiden't estate

 



Kids having fun with a rubber ball





Green and flowers everywhere





Indian Gate and visitors are well quarded

Tried to walk slowly here but got a little scared

Gurgaon, south Delhi or some other area

The key question: Where to live when my office is in Shanti Niketan, boys will attend the American Embassy School, we like to have space, and look for as little noice and dust as possible? Luckily I have time to learn more and look for options, as the family will move in the summer. I have walked around in Shanti Niketan, Vasant Vihar and nearby areas.

Most of the stores are small and
you have to know about them to find them

I made a scouting trip to Gurgaon with help of my colleague Parikshit who lives there and Juhani, who lives with his wife there in Pinnacle tower. Driving times for us would be 25-40 minutes. Driving from Gurgaon to Delhi in the morning and driving to Gurgaon in the afternoon or evening is not bad, actually the traffic flows well. Traffic is bad the other way around.

Only bottleneck was at the exit from highway to Gurgaon

Gurgaon is about new buildings and construction sites

Nice view from the 18th floor apartment

Dust gets also into high rise apartments because
of the holes, gaps, and chimney effect of the building

Driving in Fri 5 pm light traffic to Gurgaon

View from Taj Mahal hotel

Still more than 10 areas to check out before I will start the real home hunting.

DSDS 2011 event and Cleantech Finland press event

Piece of Minister Paula Lehtomaki's opening remarks at Cleantech Finland press event in Delhi Sustainable Development Summit 2011 http://dsds.teriin.org in Feb 3rd. Cleantech Finland http://www.cleantechfinland.com/ is a cluster and network of hundreds of Finnish companies and thousands of experts to solve today's problems.

Started in New Delhi Feb 2nd 2011

I started to work in New Delhi, India, in the beginning of February 2011. Winter and spring will be about new job, daily Skype video sessions with my wife and sons in Finland, many trips to Finland, and looking for place to live after my family moves here in late June or early August.

Three pieces of luggage to India
(the white one was for a colleague in Helsinki)