By Damayanti Datta for India Today

On February 7, three Karnataka ministers were captured on television poring over a phone screen, watching a woman in a petticoat gyrating wildly. They lost their jobs for watching pornography in the sacred precincts of the Legislative Assembly. The incident is a high-profile sample of a definitive reality: porn is pervasive through the Internet across India, easily and freely available, not just to leery politicians but to children and adults in millions of ordinary homes.

It is a sign of the times that the most famous international porn star has Indian roots and was on Indian television. Sunny Leone, 30, appeared on the reality show Big Boss 5 and has now launched a clothes-on Bollywood career. Her fake breasts, that won the 2010 fame Award for Favourite Breasts in Los Angeles, have brought her the honour of being named among the 50 Most Desirable Women by the nation’s biggest daily this month.

The organised $12 billion (Rs.60,000 crore) American adult entertainment industry, to which Leone belongs, has bred explicit images beyond the limits of imagination. And they are free. Fuelled by the Internet and facilitated by high-speed data service, pornography, born in dozens of studio lofts around the world, has entered teenagers’ mobile phones with the force and sweep of a dangerous flood. It threatens to swamp conventional notions of morality, raise tensions in bedrooms, lure children into a world they do not understand, and initiate a culture that threatens the mores of family life as we know it.

The writing is on the wall. Google Trends show the search volume index for the word ‘porn’ has doubled in India between 2010 and 2012. With instant Net connectivity and flexible payment options, online porn is increasingly affordable, accessible and acceptable. Seven Indian cities are among the top 10 in the world on porn search, reports Google Trends, 2011. One out of five mobile users in India wants adult content on his 3G-enabled phone, according to an 2011 IMRB Survey. Over 47 per cent students discuss porn every day, says a public school survey by Max Hospital in Delhi. Porn tops the list of cyber crimes in India, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

Rape, penetration, oral, anal, lesbian, gay or group porn are yesterday’s news. There is now a hectic crossover of porn subcultures on the World Wide Web. Consider MILF (or Mothers I Like to F***) porn. “Check out the most notorious hot, mature moms going crazy and getting f****d by young studs,” invites one of the 40,600,000 MILF websites. “A hot and sexy bride is getting raped brutally,” says a ‘ravished bride’ porn site. There is ‘pregnant porn’ (“Are you ready to see these moms-to-be in action?). There is ‘incest porn’ that welcomes you to sites with “xxx videos full of mother and son, dad and daughter”. Child porn blends with ‘teen porn’, promising “fascinating porn actions starring our young models”.

New jargon and innovative formats, borrowed from foreign cultures, are trendy on the web. For the uninitiated, chikan (“to grope” in Japanese) porn is all about public molestation in trains. ‘Bukkake’ parties involve repeated ejaculation on a woman by several men. Shemale and futanari porn mean “live action” with transsexuals. Anime and manga refer to Japanese formats of sexually-explicit comics and animation. A new focus is the service sector, with “shy massage girls” seducing clients, doctors and “hot babes in nurse uniforms” getting wild. In ‘corporate porn’ “busty secretaries” go down on their knees to pleasure their boss.

Sunny Leone (or Karen Malhotra) takes credit for the ‘pornification’ of India. “My presence on Bigg Boss has empowered a lot of people to be open about their sexuality,” she tells India Today. One of the richest adult actresses in the industry, with her SunLust Pictures in Los Angeles reporting a top line of over $1 million (Rs.5 crore), she is now getting ready to debut in filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt’s Jism 2, playing a professional body double. The most-searched Google celebrity-powered by India, Bangladesh and Pakistan-she has 1,47,326 Twitter followers.

Leone’s success indicates the greater acceptability of porn in daily life. Internet is the new tool, exploding every embarrassing sexual adventure of public personalities and making every lurid detail an item of private consumption. Coming after the midwife Bhanwri Devi’s sex cds with Rajasthan politician Mahipal Maderna in November 2011, public reaction to the Karnataka fiasco has ranged from indignation to amusement, but not shock: if political parties engaged in a morality-in-politics war, social activist Anna Hazare demanded the ministers be sent to jail and media professional Pritish Nandy summed up Bollywood’s reaction by calling them the “3 idiots”.

“A porn star doesn’t automatically mean prostitute,” says Leone, now seeking respectability. She talks about her parents’ initial shock turning into respect, how they taught her to be a “good person”, years of hard work, restrained personal life, professionalism and lack of regrets. Like the girl-next-door, she tweets how she is learning Hindi, cooking sabzi and massaging hair oil. Her endeavour will not be too difficult. Young adults, who grew up with cable TV, DVD players and the Internet, have been exposed to much more adult material than their parents. As filmmaker Pooja Bhatt points out, “Young people don’t respond negatively to Sunny because they have already logged on to her website.”

She is not wrong. Even school students discuss porn. Dr Samir Parikh, chief psychiatrist, Max Healthcare, calls it “risky indulgences”. In a survey on 1,000 children from top public schools in Delhi in 2010, he found 47 per cent boys and 29 per cent girls visiting porn sites and talking about it in school. “I understand sexual inquisitiveness and peer pressure around sexuality, but pornography on the Internet is fake, unreal, often violent and downright perverted,” he says. “Moreover, a new technology in young hands could lead to irresponsible behaviour and ruin their lives.” He obviously has in mind the stream of MMS scandals that have hit campuses across the country since 2004, when two Class XI students of a school in Delhi created a sensation. In many of these cases, either one partner was not aware of being filmed or did not anticipate the videos would get circulated-as in May 2011 when JNU student Janardan Kumar, 22, made a video of the girl he was intimate with and used it to blackmail her after being rejected.

Campus porn is a thriving subterranean culture. Try talking to students in various campuses of Delhi: “Have you ever heard of MMS videos of students being circulated on the campus?”

Diksha Singh, 20: “Every couple of months there is a fresh case. It’s so common, I don’t even blink.”

Raghav Verma, 19: “All the time. It’s shocking to see a classmate’s intimate details on video camera.”

Mehak Suri, 18: “My ex-boyfriend tried that with me, and when it didn’t work he sent me threatening emails and messages.”

Amaira Kapoor, 20: “You will be surprised to know how many cases go unreported and unaccounted for.”

Sakshi Wakhlu, 21: “A year ago, one girl got high, went with a group of boys and had sex with them. The men came back and talked.”

The arrival of smartphones is changing the country’s porn landscape further. India has the lowest penetration of smartphones, 10 per cent, among the youth globally. But with email, social networking, chatting, messaging and gaming, it is a device every youth craves for. And now there are even porn applications. Imagine a ‘pocket’ girlfriend or boyfriend, who can strip, talk dirty, make sexual noises. “These are some of the ‘apps’ that can be downloaded on smartphones,” says Pranesh Prakash, programme manager with Bangalore-based think-tank Centre for Internet and Society. “App download data shows the popularity of sex-themed apps on smartphones, apart from the adults-only stores,” he says. Age restrictions for applications? Mostly a pop-up asking if one is over 17. With over 50 per cent of all Internet users in the country accessing the web via mobile phones already, as estimated by TRAI, smartphones are the future of anytime-anywhere porn.

The threshold of what can be called ‘pornography’ is shifting. Mainstream and hardcore entertainment are coming closer. The Dirty Picture, biopic of south siren Silk Smitha, raked in Rs.50 crore in its very first week in December 2011, with its noisy orgasms, titillating cleavage and fiery dialogues. It’s also hard to draw the line between porn and art in raunchy item numbers, from Sheila ki Jawani to Munni Badnam Hui. “What heroines do in films today is what vamps did yesterday,” says filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt. Some item numbers are more obscene than nudity, he feels. “People tell me, how can someone who made Saaransh, Arth and Zakhm, make films like Jism and Murder” he adds. “I say, get off the high horse.”

Kolkata certainly is getting off the high horse. A city with the least taste for pornography, going by India Today Sex Surveys, is also one of the top seekers of porn online, reports Google Trends. Leone’s CDs are bestsellers here. Teenage boys creep up and ask, “Sunny Leone ka CD chahiye?” (Want Sunny Leone’s CDs?), at Chandni Chowk market in central Kolkata, the city’s piracy hub. Step inside the dingy alleys between shops selling electronic goods, and piles of pirated blue film come out of hiding-Rs.120 for just a CD and Rs.250 for one with Leone on the cover. Ask too many questions and they show you the door. The police are their friends, although motorcycles stand ready for sudden crackdowns. “Sunny’s CD is selling like hot cakes, 200 a day,” says one. Leone is not pleased. “If you are stealing my movies in Kolkata, that is flipping horrible,” she has tweeted. But who cares? A 33-year-old customer puts away her CD in his plastic bag with quiet satisfaction. “I will have to watch when the wife is not looking,” he grins.

If a married man watches porn,is it considered cheating??

My husband secretly watches porn. Why are men like this? He knows I hate porn.

My husband watches porn alone. He refuses to watch it with me.

My husband watches porn very often. Should I be worried?

I feel insulted whenever my boyfriend watches porn.

There are 2,690,000 such postings on Google, from wives and girlfriends globally, on a range of sites on the web-health, marriage, empowerment, agony.

Watching porn alone is a rising trend among men, thanks to the Internet. Check out India Today Sex Surveys: in 2009, with video as the most popular porn format, just 10 per cent men out of 2,661 watched porn alone. This year, with smarter access and gadgets, it zoomed to 44 per cent. “It is usually a sign of cybersex addiction,” says Dr Vijay Nagaswami, Chennai-based expert on sexual psychotherapy. “Compulsive pornwatchers often become dysfunctional. They stay up late for online porn to get active on instant messengers, webcams, demand more private time, neglect family, work and normal sexual activity.”

Even five years back, it was difficult to get locals to dub foreign porn films in Gujarati. But now, mobile shop owners in Ahmedabad do brisk business in porn, supplying primarily to youngsters. They download content on hard discs and then transfer those to the memory cards of eager youngsters-Rs.100 to Rs.200 for a 30-minute film. “It’s good business. Sometimes I get more than six customers, all boys,” says Rajesh Patel, a porn-provider.

It’s good business in Chennai, too. In a small shop opposite the high court in Burma Bazaar, the hub of pirated movies in Chennai, Ramu is doing his puja. He throws flowers at the gods, and looks at his customer. “English, Tamil also.” His voice goes an octave lower, “Triple.” Who cares for storylines? Many of these films are shot in the city or taken off the Net. Ramu sells at least 100 discs a day, mostly to distributors. The CDs are mostly of Indian couples having sex, sometimes verging on rape. “This business can’t be hit by recession,” Ramu says. “People will always buy porn.”

The buzz is, although the Karnataka ministers claimed they were watching clips of a real-life gang-rape at a rave party, they were either watching Indonesian hardcore ‘abik’ porn or model Poonam Pandey’s YouTube video, Bathroom Secrets. But what do most Indians watch? Google Trends indicates that the average Indian pornwatcher opts for more tame keywords, ‘sex’ and ‘how to kiss’, the most. New research by computational neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam from Boston University, US, on a billion porn and erotic web searches across the world, shows that the five most popular porn sites for men are webcam or video sites featuring anonymous graphic sex, with a monthly traffic of 7-16 million visitors. For women, the most popular is the “erotic” site fanfiction.net, which gets over 1.5 million visitors a month and has more than two million stories, 50 per cent being “romance”.

How big is pornography in India? Of the 500 top Indian websites this month ranked by the leading global web information company Alexa, at least 24 are porn sites. Nearly a dozen porn sites are more popular than some leading news sites and that of the Bombay Stock Exchange. Leone, one of the top five global porn stars, says 80 per cent of her web traffic and 60 per cent of her “high six figures” revenue come from India. The content, she says, is “everything and above”. “I can sell anything you want as long as you have a credit card.”

The only other major-league porn actor of Indian origin in the US, Priya Anjali Rai, also says she has a lot of fans in India, but not many paying customers. Adopted from New Delhi by American parents and brought up in Arizona, Rai keeps her Indian name for her work: “That’s what makes me different from everybody else.” Both Leone and Rai insist they only do “vanilla” porn, “boy-girl stuff”. The US, specifically the Los Angeles area, has the biggest porn industry in the world, followed by London and Budapest, estimated between $4 billion (Rs.20,000 crore) and $15 billion (Rs.75,000 crore) annually. Top porn stars easily earn a quarter of a million dollars annually.

Those who think production and distribution of pornography in India are not allowed, think again. “A lot of amateur videos are being produced,” says Namita Malhotra, author of Porn: Law, Video and Technology. “They have been there for long. But now from print they have gone digital. Amateur videos are a new phenomenon,” says a lawyer associated with Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore. “It’s unorganised,” says a Bangalore-based photographer involved with the porn industry. There are a few big houses who run multi-crore businesses. The small players use small video cameras so that they can be seen on mobile phones. “Ever since the mms scandal, we make false scandal videos, called kaand,” the photographer says. “It’s normal sex. Not like those foreign videos where they use horses and 10 men at the same time.” Do they go online? Sometimes they are sold, but always with the permission of the model, “No force,” he insists. “The money is good, so that we don’t tell anyone.” His best moment? When a model asked him to shoot her in different ways, to try to create a scandal and get noticed.

Has the battle against porn been lost? Anti-porn feminists in the US have admitted defeat. India is not quite there. Despite the hyper-sexualised climate, ministers do get thrown out over porn. To cyber law expert and senior associate of SNG & Partners Rahul Sud, India is on the right track. “Personal consumption of porn has never been an offence,” he points out. “Child pornography, publishing and transmitting are.” Press Council of India Chairperson Justice Markandey Katju has rolled out the red carpet for Leone, but not before comparing her to history’s “fallen women”, Amrapali or Mary Magdalene.

Does Leone care? She is busy stretching, bending and sweating. Not in a girl-boy-girl orgy online but on a Bikram Yoga mat in Hollywood. “OMG, I’m so tired,” she tweets. She has the same vital statistics as Marilyn Monroe, 36-24-34, and she is determined to look her best for those semi-nude scenes in Jism 2. “We Indians are proud of you!,” tweets one of her admirers. “Thank you,” she tweets back. She has every reason to be grateful.

- With Indira Kannan, Nishat Bari, Kiran Tare, Gunjeet Sra, Shravya Jain, Avantika Sharma, Lakshmi Kumaraswami, Uday Mahurkar and Tithi Sarkar contributing.

Pakistanis for Peace Editor’s Note- The porn phenomena is not isolated to just India in the subcontinent. Across the border, Pakistan was recently ranked as first in the world in terms of pornographic Google searches. This is a result of two conservative societies where sex is a taboo. One can only hope that these ancient and slow changing cultures can adapt to the new realities regarding sex.

Filed under: Bangladesh, Democracy, Desi, Freedoms, India, Mumbai, Pakistan Tagged: Banaglore, Bangladesh, Big Boss, Bollywood, California Porn Industry, Chandni Chowk, Chennai, Delhi, Google Trends, India, Jism 2, Karen Malhotra, Los Angeles, Mahesh Bhatt, Mahipal Maderna, MILF, Mumbai, Pakistan, Porn, Porn Industry, Pornification, Sex, SunLust Pictures, Sunny Leone

Whether you are looking to add a basic “Contact Me” form to your website or need to create a complex online poll with conditional branching, Google Docs is an excellent tool for you. It offers a variety of themes, data can be easily exported and, unlike other polling software, your Google Docs forms can accept any number of responses without the fee.

There’s one limitation though. Google Docs can send email notifications as soon as people submit your online form but, as shown in the above screenshot, there’s no form data included in that email message. You’ll have to open the corresponding Google Docs spreadsheet to see that actual form data which is not always a very convenient option.

From Google Docs Form to your Email Inbox

Should you wish to receive Google Docs form data in an email message as soon as a user submits the form, there’s an easy workaround as explained in the following video.

The trick is that you associate a send mail routine with your Google Docs form that triggers as soon as a “form submit” action happens. And this routine, written using Google Apps Script, does all the magic – it reads the form values that were just submitted and sends them all in one message to a pre-defined address.

Here’s how you can add email capabilities to your Google Forms step by step:

1. Create a new form in Google Docs (or use any of your existing forms) and switch to the Spreadsheet view.
2. Go to Tools –> Script Editor and copy-paste the following code in that code editor window. Replace the value of variable “email” with your own email address.

function sendFormByEmail(e)
{
  // Remember to replace XYZ with your own email address
  var email = "XYZ";
  // Optional but change the following variable
  // to have a custom subject for Google Docs emails
  var subject = "Google Docs Form Submitted";
  // The variable e holds all the form values in an array.
  // Loop through the array and append values to the body.
  var message = "";
  for(var field in e.namedValues) {
    message += field + ' :: '
               + e.namedValues[field].toString() + "\n\n";
  }
  // This is the MailApp service of Google Apps Script
  // that sends the email. You can also use GmailApp here.
  MailApp.sendEmail(email, subject, message);
  // Watch the following video for details
  // http://youtu.be/z6klwUxRwQI
  // By Amit Agarwal - www.labnol.org
}

3. Next go to Triggers –> Current Script’s Triggers and associate the Send Mail function with “On Form Submit” event.
4. Save the Google script, authorize Google Docs to access your Gmail account (for sending email) and you’re done.

Advanced users can further customize the script to have custom email subject lines that match one of the form fields. Alternatively, you can specify the form submitter’s email address as the replyto address and thus you can directly respond to the user by replying to that email notification.

Also see: Perform Mail Merge in Gmail using Google Docs

This story, Get Form Data from Google Docs in an Email Message [Video Tutorial], was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 23/02/2012 under Google Docs, Polls, Internet.

El pasado Diciembre fue un mes complicado para todo. Para ver cine también. Pero bueno, aquí está lo poco que ha caído.

Lo mejor, sin duda, El tren de las 3:10 (2007), una de vaqueros clásica, amable y con personajes tópicos pero muy bien logrados. Sin nombre (2009) también es una buena peli que habla sobre la inmigración ilegal y el mundillo de las maras latinoamericanas. No profundiza en en ninguno de ambos terrenos, pero lo poco que cuenta parece creible y se deja ver bastante bien.

Para acabar, El último gran día (2009) cuenta la historia de un anciano amargado y con fama de cascarrabias que decide celebrar su funeral antes de morir para invitar a todo el pueblo y dar cuentas de su pasado. No me llegó, lo siento…

Compártelo:

In collaboration with Google, Mobilink presents Gmail SMS; a free web-to-SMS service which enables Gmail user to send free SMS to any Mobilink subscriber in Pakistan via Gmail chat client.

This is Best for Overseas Pakistanis. Mobilink subscriber can also reply back to that SMS which will appear on Gmail user’s Gmail interface.

It is noteworthy that in order to initiate chat; first (1st) message has to be sent by a Gmail user via Gmail client on www.gmail.com.

This means that Mobilink subscriber cannot initiate chat himself with his Gmail contacts from mobile phone.

Spam Protection Policy & Quota System (as defined by Google) will be applicable to curb abuse of Gmail SMS service.

How To ?

Services Mechanism (Gmail User)

• Log into Gmail account using web browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Google Chrome. In Chat and SMS text box (image enclosed), enter the number of Mobilink subscriber to send message and click on Send SMS.
• In the dialog box, enter the name of message recipient in Contact Name text box; check the country name and mobile number (MSISDN) of mobile recipient (Mobilink subscriber) are correct. Once done, click Save as it will help to build contact list.
• Type message in the chat window and hit Enter. Message will be sent to the mobile number entered.
• To send message to already saved contact, type his name or number in Chat and SMS text box. Desired contact will be displayed below. Select it from the list and send message.

Services Mechanism (Mobilink Subscriber)

• To respond to the message received from Gmail user, simply reply from mobile. Reply will appear on Gmail interface of Gmail user.
• Mobilink subscriber can reply to the message received from Gmail user within 24 hours.

Service Charges:

• SMS sent by Gmail users to Mobilink subscribers will be free of cost.
• SMS sent by Mobilink subscribers to Gmail users will be charged @ Rs. 1+Tax/SMS.
• No subscription is required to avail Gmail SMS service.

How to get Gmail or Google SMS Credit ?

Gmail initially offers 50 Free SMS. Every time you send a SMS, your google sms credit decreases by 1 and every time you receive an SMS message in Chat (for example when a ‘sms receiver’ replies to your messages) your credit increases by five, up to a maximum of 50.

Trick: Anyone can send an SMS to its own phone from Google, and then reply to that message to get 5 credits for each reply. This is legal, as you are buying credits by paying your phone company. If your SMS credit goes down to zero at any point, it will increase back up to one 24 hours later.

Commands for Mobilink Subscriber:

Mobilink subscriber can use below commands while chatting via Gmail SMS service through his mobile phone. Please note that these commands can be sent in response to SMS received from the Gmail user only.

• HELP: Command can be used to get list of useful commands.
• BLOCK: Command can be used to block messages from a specific Gmail user. This command should be sent in response to the SMS from that Gmail user whom you want to block.
• UNBLOCK: Command can be used to un-block Gmail user. After the execution of this command, mobile subscriber will be able to receive messages from the Gmail user he has previously blocked
  Following commands can be sent at 2434000.
• STOP: To block all messages from all Gmail users.
• START: To enables receiving SMS messages from Gmail if you’re currently blocking these.

This service is Best for Overseas Pakistanis to send free SMS to Pakistan.

© Pakistan Live News

This is the second part of the Transform Marketing Conference 2012.

Brand Engagement: Achieving Higher levels of performance and results.

Salman Yousuf – Brand Manager – Gillete, Braun, Oral-B & Duracell

Salman Yousuf – Brand Manager – Gillete, Braun, Oral-B & Duracell

• A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product or service.
• Interactions + Feelings = Brand
• Stairway to Brand Heaven & Hell : positive interactions and consistency send a brand on its way to brand heaven like Google, unpleasant interactions and inconsistency lead to brand hell like Vista.
• Brand Engagement is basically a person taking voluntary action with a brand in a way that will drive brand preference and thus purchase.
• BE drives engagement/action which pushes brand to TOM (Top of Mind) which finally leads to consumer advocacy.
• Consumer engagement:
1. Matters to the consumer
2. Serves the brand
3. Need to seed and feed
• Heineken one of the leading beer brands in the world, came up with dual screening campaign during the football world cup whereby people could choose the camera angle as well as predict goals and penalties to win prizes. 
• Nike came up with the ‘Write the Future’ Campaign, a challenge to counter Adidas’ sponsorship of the world cup. This campaign spawned retail space, social media, pretty much everything and resulted in a staggering 7.1% increase in sales in addition to raving reviews from the prestigious publications.

• Domino’s ‘Show Us Your Pizza’ was a successful campaign that ran into problems midway through.
• Domino’s objective was to show that it didn’t use any photoshop effects on its pizza promotional communication, and what they consumers saw in the ads was what they actually got delivered. It showed behind the scenes tricks of how food photography is tampered to give a great artificial image of the food item. It then offered its customers to send photos of its domino’s pizza they bought and win $500 worth of free pizza.
• All these photos were posted by the customers on social media, and to Domino’s horror, some of the pizzas were delivered in appalling condition. In order to recover from this PR damage, the CEO himself appeared in an ad showing one of the spoilt pizzas, apologized and promised free pizzas or refund to these customers.

• Gillete Groomin Gurus was a local campaign launched to increase the penetration of Gillete Mach 3 amongst the youth using Strings as brand ambassadors. The team visited different universities all over the country to impart grooming advice. Moreover, people were given free tickets to Strings concert on the purchase of Mach 3, and the concert itself was organized by Gillete.

Salman Yousuf – Brand Manager – Gillete, Braun, Oral-B & Duracell

Q&A SESSION

Q. Do you know Pakistan has only 10% internet penetration, then how can you expect to reach people through this medium? Why are you only going to private universities, why not to government institutions?  Plus your marketing strategy is such that it ignores the people with beards. – Kashif – Oasis Insights

A.  Who you target depends on your product and its target market. We approached the people that we did because we felt that was our target market.

Neil Christy: That was a very polite way of putting things. The point is, people with beards are not likely to buy a product as Mach 3. As such targeting a segment from where you’re not going to generate sales is just a complete waste of money.

Secondly, the impact of the internet is largely downplayed and underestimated in Pakistan while the top 10 fads/trends to appear in Pakistan in the last couple of years, Sialkot beating, Imran Khan campaign, were largely a result of social media. 

The Power of ‘No’

Shahzad Nawaz  – CEO Shahzad Nawaz Consulting

• Franka Rose refused to sit at the back of the bus just because she was colored.
• 136 people died in Lahore because of the medicine tender going to the lowest bidder pharma.
• Corporate world is in a rat race. And even if you win that race, you’re still a rat.
• There’s a culture of staying late in the office, and employees are afraid to say No to that.
• CEO is the wrong title given to me. I’m not a proper company. I’m just a one-man operation. I prostitute my time when I need to make some bucks.
• No one is free in today’s world. Even the CEO is a servant of the corporation that he works for.
• Billboards is one of the most dishonest businesses in Pakistan. I was the first one to introduce them here, but then when I realized you had to grease so many palms to survive, I got out. People have made billions in this business.

Q. How do you get out from this rat race? Where do you start? Yasmeen Zafar IBA

A. To be brutally honest, resign if you don’t agree with it. However, this drastic step is not always feasible, especially from an economic point of view. Even Islam tells you to stop an evil either physically, verbally or at the very least in your heart. So start with that. And don’t compromise on your values.

Q. Why aren’t our ad agencies churning out good creative ads? Why the same stuff is being copied time and again?

A. That’s because our ad agencies don’t have the guts to say No to client if he wants something nonsense. I left the advertising world back in 2002 because of such issues especially exploitation of women. I only once used a woman in an ad and even then it was because it was the requirement of the strategy not the client. The creative doesn’t bother coming up with something original because they know the seth of the advertising agency would reject it instead of defending it if the client doesn’t like it.  

Neil Christy:

You can afford to say no to people since you’ve already made a name for yourself. But people starting out in their career, how are they going to get anywhere if they say no to everything.

A.  By no I meant, something which is not ethically fit with your values. Don’t compromise on that. The sustenance that has been ordained for you, you will get one way or the other. It’s up to you how you earn it.

Neil Christy:

If I start saying No to my clients, pretty soon I will be sitting outside. You have to listen to your client and give him the brand strategy that he wants. You can’t run an ad agency with more disagreements than agreements with your client.

• A. By brand I meant Life. There’s a Chinese proverb that says Life is like a room with two doors. You enter from one door, spend some time and leave through the other without any trace. Only a few are able to write something on the walls of the room whilst there.

Brand Building in Cultural Tension

Taher A.Khan

Taher A. Khan – Interflow Communications

• I once told Unilever chairman he doesn’t need to hire MBAs to run their marketing. The poor souls don’t have the liberty to provide any input. All the creative templates come from abroad. All that the people on the ground need to do is execute them. And that can be done by any person with a little bit of marketing experience.
• Once I asked their brand manager the reason for blindly following the strategy from India for a tea brand which involved people performing a classical dance which wasn’t going to work in Pakistan. He said that if he rejected that coming up with his own strategy and that didn’t work, he would lose his job. But if he followed the dictated strategy and that didn’t work, he would still keep his job.
• India used to have the same problem. But the Indians have discovered themselves and are shedding their colonial skins. They’ve finally learnt to say No.
• Today, dramatic changes have the potential to occur at a breakneck pace courtesy social media.
• Visited Egypt just a couple of months before the Arab Spring and there was not an inkling of what was coming. Hosni Mubarak was still popular and very much in control.
• There are 6.2 million Facebook users in Pakistan. The largest newspaper in Pakistan has a circulation of not more than 0.5 Mn. The largest English newspaper has an even less at 400,000.
• Marketers still rely on the newspapers by and large.
• Mass media of today is social.
• Ad agencies today have different creative and digital departments which is strange. If a creative doesn’t know how to use digital media, he doesn’t deserve the job. When television first started, the creative didn’t know how to come up with TVCs, but they learnt it fast and today a creative is not considered worthy if he can’t come up with TVCs.
• Marketing has evolved: from a controlling phase to a shut-out phase to a conversation phase.
• Marketers today have to engage customers in conversations.
• Conversation leads to relationship which leads to affinity which results in communities.
• Marketers need to be out there where their target market is. If they can’t sit in a dhaba or ride a bus, they’ve no business being in this profession.
• Rizwan Jamil, one of the Unilever directors once spent three days living with a poor family as part of a ethnography study. He was shocked to see that the family had just boiled water with sprinkled spice along with a chapatti for all the three meals of the day. That was the extent of their poverty, and yet contrary to what we believe, they were all cheerful. They didn’t have the line of thinking that because of our abject poverty we are doomed, as so many of us far better-off than this family think.
• The strategy for the Big Idea is only possible from the intersection of customers insights and the brand’s best self.
• Mountain Dew sells more than Coke in Pakistan. Last month it sold more than Pepsi, becoming the largest selling soft drink in Pakistan.
• In Pakistan, it sells most in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa. Ought to be called the official drink of Taliban.
• Outside of North America, Pakistan is the biggest market for Mountain Dew in the entire world.
• Today on an average, 25% headlines in the world are negative, 3% positive and 72% neutral.
• Azme Alishan is a local brand we’re trying to build to rekindle the spirit of patriotism. It’s brand motto is that Pakistan would be a better place if we saw the glass as half full and not half empty.
• The brand has received some noteworthy success: 80,000 facebook fans, 60,000 youtube views, 600 tweets and 210 followers.
• What Azme Alishan has done is inspire other brands to come up with such uplifting projects. Telenor’s Karo Mumkin was a direct result of that, which was then followed by Mobilink and Cadbury.
• Azme Alishan has spawned many sub-brands including:
• National Song Competition
• Challenge Hai Pakistani
• Manzare Pakistan
• Behtar Pakistan
• Azam Awards
• Cadbury is just one of the brand that wants to sponsor the Azam awards.
• In today’s world, the only way forward for sustainability is a compelling narrative and an engaging dialogue.

Taher A.Khan

Related posts:

1. Transform 2012 Conference: What’s Next in Brand Management & Generational Marketing After the  success of Transform 2011 Conference: What’s Next in…
2. Transform Marketing Conference 2012 Transform 2012 Marketing Conference – What’s Next in Brand Management…
3. Transform 2011- What’s Next in Marketing, Media & Advertising Transform 2011 marketing conference organized by Event Architects was held…

Microsoft  has launched a new online service called msnNOW, which is a social media powered trends and news aggregator. It analyzes data from Twitter, Facebook, Bing and some other services to identify, curate and display the latest news stories and trends. It is like a mash-up of Google News and Google Trends, but instead of search, it is powered by social data .

Transform 2012 Marketing Conference

Although the theme given was What’s Next in Brand Management and Generational Marketing, the topics covered were diverse, ranging from personal branding to running a social media campaign.

 Here are the proceedings of the morning session:

Transform 2012 Marketing Conference

Corporate Image Development in a Changing World

Fahad Qadir – Director Public Affairs and Communications –Pak Afghan – Coca-Cola Export Corporation

•  We are living in a world of changing cultures.
• Tahrir Square was a revolution sparked by Twitter.
• In 2002, Netscape IPO was the biggest in history, today the company is no more.
• Facebook has swept the world with lightning speed, becoming equivalent to the second biggest country in the world.
• ‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation and just five minutes to ruin it.’ – Warren Buffet. 
• Actually it takes longer than 20 years to build your reputation. Some of the most reputable companies have been around for more than 100 years.
• Consumers are not attracted by sleek packaging anymore.
• Corporate image is a major part of what sells a company and its products.
• Corporate image building results in trust.
• Coke has been instrumental in helping out with the relief efforts in Pakistan whenever required and goes all the way to help out instead of just writing a cheque.
• Wendy’s Hamburger was one of the most famous burger joints in US, until 2005 when a woman discovered a human finger in her burger. Wendy’s refused to talk to the media while investigating the incident including checking the fingers of its employees in that joint. The woman sued Wendy for $10 million. It was finally revealed that the woman was a conman who pulled such stunts. The finger belonged to her boyfriend. Wendy’s never really recovered from this PR fiasco.
• Tony Howard, CEO of BP went for a holiday with his son in the middle of the 2006 Gulf of Mexico oil spill controversy, pretending as if nothing had happened. He came back and said to the media ‘… I would like my life back…’. He was sacked.
• Toyota in 2010 recalled 700,000 cars which had an issue with the brakes.
• Facebook ran into privacy issues 2010 which they didn’t address properly.
• Iphone 4 had an antenna issue whereby if you kept your hand at a certain point, the signals were lost. No real action taken.
• You could argue that these issues didn’t impact these two giants. Apple is going great guns with $97 Billion in cash reserves alone.
• The point is to stay prepared for the bad times by resolving all issues right then and there.
• Three pillars of Corporate Image:

1. Corporate Politics
2. Corporate Culture
3. Design of the organization

• The golden triangle : Government – Community – Culture
• Jack Welch changed the entire corporate culture of GE, making it one of the biggest American corporations during his reign. He had to take some decision like firing quite a few people but he got it done.
• Coke Studio is a perfect example of the benefits of positive corporate image.
• Coke Studio has done much to improve Pakistan’s image in the eyes of the world, receiving raving reviews on such prestigious publications as Wall Street Journal.
• It is the fourth largest music entity in the world on Google.
• The website receives most hits outside of Pakistan especially from Europe.
• On social media, it has received thousands of views and reviews.
• Interbrand has ranked Coke as the No.1 brand in the world for nine consecutive years.
• Coke is one of three most reputed companies in Pakistan.
• ‘21^st century CEOs will be judged not only by how they changed their industries, but also how well they led their companies to have positive impacts on the world.’ – Hecto Ruiz – Chairman & CEO AMD

Fahad Qadir – Director Public Affairs and Communications -Coca Cola

Q&A SESSION:

• What was the impact of New Coke fiasco? –Yasmeen Zafar - IBA

A.  Somewhere in 1992 our then CEO decided to leverage the Coke brand and come up with a new formula for Coke. After extensive research New Coke was launched while the classic Coke was phased out. People, especially die-hard fans of Coke rejected the new Coke, thousands of letters were sent to the CEO demanding the return of the Red Coke.

• What was the tangible impact of New Coke or even Coke Studio? –Yasmeen Zafar – IBA

A. Both of these incidents affected the bottom-line. I can’t tell you the figures, but it was double-digit.

• You mentioned Coke has indulged in CSR, with the relief efforts and all. Can you give the specifics of it?     -Zeeshan – Owner private firm

A.  Coke was the first entity, even before the US government to not only pledge but disburse $2 million within 24 hours for the 2005 Earthquake. It then gave $3 Mn for the relief of flood victims. Apart from that, Coke initiates sustainable projects. For example there’s one in Nathiagali that has been going for four years, then Women Empowerment through KAAF Foundation since 2 years. All these projects have been devised to be self-sustaining, that at some time we can hand them over to the people to by run by themselves and help the community on their own.

• What has been the impact of negative sentiments associated with America on Coke being an American brand?

A. Yes, Coca-Cola originated in US and we’ve had our fair share of troubles and pitfalls owing to the negative perception of US in this part of the world, but this was 125 years. Now Coke is an entity owned by millions and not by one country. Warren Buffet has the most shares, but that’s just about it. In Pakistan just like everywhere else it is run by the locals. No ‘Gora’ comes here to run the operations, we do it ourselves.  The entire supply chain operation of Coke employs 5 million people. Coke contributes 1.5% of the total tax revenue of Pakistan.

Personal Branding

Yousuf Bashir Qureshi – YBQ Studios

Yousuf Bashir Qureshi -  YBQ Studios

• I thought I was going to be lecturing a group of students. What I’m faced with now is a room full of intellectuals more educated than me. I’m not an MBA. I didn’t have any mentors in my life. I went to cadet college, then I became a food scientist.
• Before my 21^st birthday, I was the most fight-prone person. I just loved to get into a fight. If anyone wanted to pick a fight with someone, he would put me in front. Nothing frightened me.
• On my 21^st birthday party, a female friend of mine much younger than me told me that I was the most afraid person, that I was afraid of what people think about me. All my ego went down the drain. I got angry and threw her out of my party. Later I begged her for forgiveness.
• Our perception of what is desirable and what is not is completely influenced by the media.
• In the 80s, we were told that Cindy Crawford and Brooke Shields were the most beautiful women on the face of the planet. They were mere teenagers and large-frame women as opposed to today’s supermodel definition.
• Then in the early 90s Kate Moss with her negligent chest and hips and a face full of freckles became the darling of the media. All of a sudden, women wanted to grow freckles.
• Further into the 90s, tanned skin and Brazilian hips came in vogue.
• I as a person have no opinion. I’ve to go along with what the media feeds me.
• When a mother goes looking for his son’s bride, the traits used to track down the perfect match are what the media tells you – fair, slim, pretty, educated. The match is finally found and the nuptials tied. The man is congratulated by his peers on getting the trophy wife. The man himself feels proud of having a trophy wife. And yet he goes and has an affair with the maid. The maid is the complete opposite of his trophy wife, of whom he’s proud of, and yet he still has an affair. Why is that?
• I once interviewed a kidnapper, and asked him why did he indulge in this cruel trade. He said it was his family business. Plus he didn’t kidnap the poor people. He only kidnapped rich people who could afford to pay. Likewise the brain can justify even murder.
• You don’t need the outside world to tell you what is good for you or not. The mind, heart and body are enough to make you succeed in life provided that you listen to it.
• Take smoking for example. When you first smoke, the body coughs telling you it’s bad for you. You do it again and again, and the body finally allows you to do it and eventually kills you for abusing it.
• I opened my studio in a small dilapidated alley. People told me who would come here. I didn’t know anyone in Karachi as I had been in the US for 15 years and before that I spent five years in cadet college. I still tried, relying solely on my self-belief.
• Prejudice is a natural fear of strangers and is alright as long as you don’t nurture it which then turns into racism.
• I reinvented my attire, making generous use of pagri, dhoti, and all sorts of non-conventional clothing.
• Initially, I was faced with stiff opposition. People would not allow me into the hotels, thinking I was a worker or something and I would play along with them.
• Once at Heathrow airport, I was standing in the line in all my fashion glory  when one of the attendants approached me and asked if I needed a translator. I said I do if you don’t understand English. She cracked up laughing and got me through the immigration in no time.
• Once I was stopped at the entrance to Sindh Club because of my dhoti. I told the guard that please allow me, the girl who had just entered was wearing a frock that was higher than my dhoti.

Yousuf Bashir Qureshi – YBQ Studios

Q&A SESSION

•  How do you deal with competition and how do you succeed by being different

1. You have to take calculated risks. Without risks, you will go nowhere. Competition will always be there and you’ve to take it all in in a healthy spirit. I’m actually flattered when someone copies my designs. You just need to have unshakeable belief that your Creator will provide you sustenance and then do your own thing.

Marketing to Youth

Noman Asar – Head of Planning JWT

Noman Asar – Head of Planning JWT

• 180 Million people of Pakistan present an ideal opportunity for any marketer.
• This becomes all the more lucrative when you consider that 63% of these people are below the age of 25.
• There are 39 Million people in the age bracket 15-24 years and they constitute 21% of the total population.
• Only 53% of these youth are literate. Females only 42% literate.
• An overwhelming 82% of the females in this bracket are married while only 31% males are.
• This presents an interesting dynamics for the dating scene since the number of males searching for their soul mate far exceed the available females.
• Just because 63% of the population is youth doesn’t mean that they are one big segment and can be marketed as such.
• In reality, there are numerous sub-segments within it that require a unique marketing strategy tailored to it.
• The following is a rough break-up of the youth composition:

1. SEC A – 8%
2. SEC B – 8%
3. SEC C – 15-20%
4. SEC D,E – Remaining

• A rough break-up of the sub-segments within the youth:

1. Primary – Madressah, Government, Private
2. Secondary – Matric/Inter,  O/A Level
3. Young Executives

• The way to know these youth is to go out, intermingle with them or watch them in their habitat.
• I was once observing a couple of kids from SEC C at a swimming pool when one of the kids said to his friend, ‘Why are you vibrating?’. If I wasn’t there observing them in action, I would never have known that the new word for shiver in this target market is ‘Vibrate’. This shows the extent to which mobile devices have seeped into our psyche.
• The learning can be had via three different methods:

1. Ethnographic Studies
2. Qualitative Research
3. Quantitative Research

• People born between 1987 and 1997 either do not know or have had no affect on their mindset, a number of major events like Lebanon massacre, Zia ul Haq, Fall of Russian Empire, Revolution in China etc.
• This group is more influenced by General Musharraf, Taliban, war on terrorism etc.
• JWT conducted a focus group of the young adults and the following insights were gleaned from that session wrt their traits:
  • Traditional, simple but outgoing.
  • More personal bonding with family.
  • Consider their parents as friends. They are more like their ‘peer-ants’.
  • Independent, however within their tradition and cultural norms.
  • Want to increase the quality of their life and their family.
  • The youth value ‘Me’ time more than the previous generation. While the National average is 2 hours, the youth average is 3 hours.
  • There has been a paradigm shift in the ownership of electronic devices. While at one time it was cassette players and video players, today the dominant device is the cellphone, surpassing even DVD and MP3 players.
  • According to a study, 58% of the youth value Ads whereas just 43% of the entire country.
  • According to a study conducted in August 2011 by Anxiety Index, youth were asked positive or negative reaction about a number of factors including Food and petrol prices. Not a single factor was rated positive by them.
  • The problems of Roti, Kapra aur Makaan that were dominant 30 years ago are still relevant and directly affect the youth.
  • The levels of anxiety amongst the Pakistani youth are one of the highest in the world at 89%, just behind Japan at 90%.
  • What’s even more alarming is the level of pessimism. They feel alienated in their own country. 
  • They were also asked to rate their favorite TVC and from what they told us, we’ve a fairly good idea of what to show in a TVC.
  • You need to create a TVC which is either Escapist, Revolutionary or inspires Hope.
  • The challenge is to come with a campaign which increases your market share in spite of all odds, including the pessimistic state of the state and the target market.
  • Band-Aid is one brand that was able to increase its sales in spite of holding 82% of the market share and having a product that didn’t inspire, and was looked down upon.
  • They did it by hiring the Brazilian designer Alexandre Herchcovitch to come up with innovative designs for the bandage and use it on fashion models during his shows.
  • The result: using band-aids became a fashion statement, with people using band-aids on all sorts of apparels and accessories apart from on their own self.

• Ford used the popular social networking site Bebo to strike a conversation with its target market in New Zealand for its new Fiesta in an interview style campaign. 
• Kit Kat in Japan is called Kittu Katsu, meaning ‘Wish u luck’. Because wishing luck is an important part of Japanese culture, and they still use snail mail to send such cards, Kit Kat created a brand alliance with Japan Post Office whereby people could send Kittu Katsu to their loved ones whose wrapper was shaped in the form of a post-card.
• This strategy created $11 Million worth of free publicity.

• Indian Panga League was a spoof of Indian Premier League created by Virgin Mobile whose purpose was to promote its new call rates during the IPL. The activity went viral on social media.

• Coke Studio’s success was largely due to the digital medium instead of just the TV.

Q. How do you propose marketing to the rural market as social media is still very limited in penetration in a country like Pakistan.

A. TV ads are still very important and one of the most effective ways of reaching the mass market that social media cannot. Having said that, TVC alone cannot achieve your brand goals and it will have to be part of a campaign in which social media plays a big part as well.

End of First Part…….

Transform 2012 Marketing Conference

Related posts:

1. Transform 2012 Conference: What’s Next in Brand Management & Generational Marketing After the  success of Transform 2011 Conference: What’s Next in…

Following up from my previous post about sending Free SMS to Pakistan from the Internet, today a colleague shared a link from propakistani.pk over email. Apparently, as long as you worship Lord Googleuddin, you can NOW send free SMS to Pakistan – but only to Mobilink customers.

Here’s an interesting service for overseas Pakistanis. One can send free SMS from Gmail SMS service to any Mobilink number. The recipient can reply back (not free) and reply appears in the gmail chat/sms window. Even though there are other services available, they are clumsy, unreliable and full of nasty ads. Read below to get a few tips about how it works and how to set it up.

Why is Mobilink offering this? At Rs.1+tax, this is a nice value-added service (VAS) which can add up to a decent revenue stream. As you can guess, this kind of chat usually results in many paid text messages. Gmail users are subject to a sms quota, which increases every time a paid sms is received .. which points to a revenue share mechanism for Google. I’m sure smart users will figure out ways to minimize their expense while making the most of this service.

Expect other telcos to follow suit and offer more unified communications services.

Setup
Not all gmail accounts have sms service enabled. Go to the mail settings (instructions) and enable SMS from the Lab.

Next type in the number as shown below and start the chat.

There are a number of details, terms and conditions and settings (such as blocking/unblocking) of this service which can be viewed at Mobilink site.

More info on how to use the service is available at: http://www.jazzjazba.com/such-services/gmail-sms/

More on Gwanju (Kwanju) Uprisig can be seen on this website here.

By Chris Brummitt for The Associated Press

Inside a high-security air force complex that builds jet fighters and weapons systems, Pakistan’s military is working on the latest addition to its sprawling commercial empire: a homegrown version of the iPad.

It’s a venture that bundles together Pakistani engineering and Chinese hardware, and shines a light on the military’s controversial foothold in the consumer market. Supporters say it will boost the economy as well as a troubled nation’s self-esteem. It all comes together at an air force base in Kamra in northern Pakistan, where avionics engineers — when they’re not working on defense projects — assemble the PACPAD 1.

“The original is the iPad, the copy is the PACPAD,” said Mohammad Imran, who stocks the product at his small computer and cell phone shop in a mall in Rawalpindi, a city not far from Kamra and the home of the Pakistani army.

The device runs on Android 2.3, an operating system made by Google and given away for free. At around $200, it’s less than half the price of Apple or Samsung devices and cheaper than other low-end Chinese tablets on the market, with the bonus of a local, one-year guarantee.

The PAC in the name stands for the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, where it is made. The PAC also makes an e-reader and small laptop.
Such endeavors are still at the pilot stage and represent just a sliver of the military’s business portfolio, which encompasses massive land holdings, flour and sugar mills, hotels, travel agents, even a brand of breakfast cereal.

The military is powerful, its businesses are rarely subject to civilian scrutiny, and it has staged three coups since Pakistan became a state in 1947. Many Pakistanis find its economic activities corrupting and say it should focus on entirely on defense.

“I just can’t figure it out,” said Jehan Ara, head of Pakistan’s Software Houses Association, said of the PACPAD. “Even if they could sell a billion units, I can’t see the point. The air force is supposed to be protecting the air space and borders of the country.”

Supporters say the foray into information technology is a boost to national pride for a country vastly overshadowed by archrival India in the high-tech field. Tech websites in the country have shown curiosity or cautious enthusiasm, but say it’s too early to predict how the device will perform. Skeptics claim it’s a vanity project that will never see mass production.

Only a few hundred of each products has been made so far, though a new batch will be completed in the next three months. “The defense industry is trying to justify its presence by doing more than just produce weapons,” said Ayesha Siddiqa, author of Military Inc., a critical study of military businesses. “Some smart aleck must have thought we can make some money here.”

PAC’s website at http://www.cpmc.pk says the goal is “strengthening the national economy through commercialization” and lauds the collaboration with China — something that likely resonates among nationalists.

China is regarded as a firm ally by Pakistan’s security establishment, whereas the U.S., despite pouring billions of dollars in aid into the country, is seen as fickle and increasingly as an enemy.

These perceptions have heightened as the U.S. intensifies drone attacks on militants based in the Pakistani borderlands. But the military is also a target of those militants. In 2007 the base at Kamra, home to 12,000 workers and their families, nine people died when a cyclist blew himself up at the entrance.

PAC officials suggested the program that produces the PACPAD was modeled in part on the Chinese military’s entry into commercial industry, which lasted two decades until it was ordered to cut back lest it become corrupted and lose sight of its core mission.

The tablet and other devices are made in a low-slung facility, daubed in camouflage paint, near, a factory that produces J-17 Thunder fighter jets with Chinese help.

“It’s about using spare capacity. There are 24 hours in a day, do we waste them or use them to make something?” said Sohail Kalim, PAC’s sales director. “The profits go to the welfare of the people here. There are lots of auditors. They don’t let us do any hanky-panky here.”

PAC builds the PACPAD with a company called Innavtek in a Hong Kong-registered partnership that also builds high-tech parts for the warplanes.
But basic questions go unanswered. Maqsood Arshad, a retired air force officer who is one of the directors, couldn’t say how much money had been invested, how many units the venture hoped to sell and what the profit from each sale was likely to be.

The market for low-cost Android tablets is expanding quickly around the world, with factories in China filling most of the demand. Last year, an Indian company produced the “Aakash” tablet, priced at $50, and sold largely to schoolchildren and students.

Arshad said a second-generation PACPAD would be launched in the next three months, able to connect to the Internet via cell phone networks and other improved features. He said the Kamra facility could produce up to 1,000 devices a day.

During a brief test, The tablet with its 7-inch screen appeared to run well and the screen responsiveness was sharp. “It seems good, but operation-wise I have to look into it,” said Mohammad Akmal, who had come to the store in Rawalpindi to check the product out. “Within a month or so, we will know.”

Filed under: China, India, Nuclear, Pakistan, Pakistan Army, Pakistanis, United States Tagged: Apple, China, Chinese, iPad, PAC, PACPAD, Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, Pakistan Air Force, Pakistan Army, Pakistan’s Software Houses Association, Samsung

Inside a high-security air force complex that builds jet fighters and weapons systems, Pakistan’s military is working on the latest addition to its sprawling commercial empire: a homegrown version of the iPad.

It’s a venture that bundles together Pakistani engineering and Chinese hardware, and shines a light on the military’s controversial foothold in the consumer market. Supporters say it will boost the economy as well as a troubled nation’s self-esteem.

It all comes together at an air force base in Kamra in northern Pakistan, where avionics engineers — when they’re not working on defense projects — assemble the PACPAD 1.

“The original is the iPad, the copy is the PACPAD,” said Mohammad Imran, who stocks the product at his small computer and cell phone shop in a mall in Rawalpindi, a city not far from Kamra and the home of the Pakistani army.

The device runs on Android 2.3, an operating system made by Google and given away for free. At around $200, it’s less than half the price of Apple or Samsung devices and cheaper than other low-end Chinese tablets on the market, with the bonus of a local, one-year guarantee.

The PAC in the name stands for the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, where it is made. The PAC also makes an e-reader and small laptop.

Such endeavors are still at the pilot stage and represent just a sliver of the military’s business portfolio, which encompasses massive land holdings, flour and sugar mills, hotels, travel agents, even a brand of breakfast cereal.

The military is powerful, its businesses are rarely subject to civilian scrutiny, and it has staged three coups since Pakistan became a state in 1947. Many Pakistanis find its economic activities corrupting and say it should focus on entirely on defense.

“I just can’t figure it out,” said Jehan Ara, head of Pakistan’s Software Houses Association, said of the PACPAD. “Even if they could sell a billion units, I can’t see the point. The air force is supposed to be protecting the air space and borders of the country.”

Supporters say the foray into information technology is a boost to national pride for a country vastly overshadowed by archrival India in the high-tech field. Tech websites in the country have shown curiosity or cautious enthusiasm, but say it’s too early to predict how the device will perform. Skeptics claim it’s a vanity project that will never see mass production.

Only a few hundred of each products has been made so far, though a new batch will be completed in the next three months.

“The defense industry is trying to justify its presence by doing more than just produce weapons,” said Ayesha Siddiqa, author of Military Inc., a critical study of military businesses. “Some smart aleck must have thought we can make some money here.”

PAC’s website at http://www.cpmc.pk says the goal is “strengthening the national economy through commercialization” and lauds the collaboration with China — something that likely resonates among nationalists.

China is regarded as a firm ally by Pakistan’s security establishment, whereas the U.S., despite pouring billions of dollars in aid into the country, is seen as fickle and increasingly as an enemy.

These perceptions have heightened as the U.S. intensifies drone attacks on militants based in the Pakistani borderlands. But the military is also a target of those militants. In 2007 the base at Kamra, home to 12,000 workers and their families, nine people died when a cyclist blew himself up at the entrance.

PAC officials suggested the program that produces the PACPAD was modeled in part on the Chinese military’s entry into commercial industry, which lasted two decades until it was ordered to cut back lest it become corrupted and lose sight of its core mission.

The tablet and other devices are made in a low-slung facility, daubed in camouflage paint, near, a factory that produces J-17 Thunder fighter jets with Chinese help.

“It’s about using spare capacity. There are 24 hours in a day, do we waste them or use them to make something?” said Sohail Kalim, PAC’s sales director. “The profits go to the welfare of the people here. There are lots of auditors. They don’t let us do any hanky-panky here.”

PAC builds the PACPAD with a company called Innavtek in a Hong Kong-registered partnership that also builds high-tech parts for the warplanes.

But basic questions go unanswered. Maqsood Arshad, a retired air force officer who is one of the directors, couldn’t say how much money had been invested, how many units the venture hoped to sell and what the profit from each sale was likely to be.

The market for low-cost Android tablets is expanding quickly around the world, with factories in China filling most of the demand. Last year, an Indian company produced the “Aakash” tablet, priced at $50, and sold largely to schoolchildren and students.

Arshad said a second-generation PACPAD would be launched in the next three months, able to connect to the Internet via cell phone networks and other improved features. He said the Kamra facility could produce up to 1,000 devices a day.

During a brief test, The tablet with its 7-inch screen appeared to run well and the screen responsiveness was sharp.

“It seems good, but operation-wise I have to look into it,” said Mohammad Akmal, who had come to the store in Rawalpindi to check the product out. “Within a month or so, we will know.”

Samsung has unveiled a new tablet which runs the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). The new tablet will be called Galaxy Tab 2 and will have a 7 inch screen.

A statement released by Samsung read:

It offers a variety of new and improved Android OS features,  using the latest version of the platform – which is intended to unify Google’s propositions for smartphones and tablets. It said that “an upgraded Android Market enables access to more than 400,000 applications.

The device will be a lighter one as it will weigh only 344 grams and will feature a 7 inch LCD Capacitive touch screen which will be able to display 16 M colors and have a resolution of 1024×600 pixels. The Galaxy Tab 2 will be powered by a 1 GHz processor which will be backed up with 1 GB RAM. Although the processor is good enough for a 7-inch tab but smart phones released by almost all vendors are featuring dual core processors, so a single core processor may render it slow when more devices running ICS are released in the market.

Galaxy Tab 2.0 will come in three variants according to storage i.e. 8 GB, 16 GB and 32 GB, all of these will have a microSD card slot adding an option of up to 32 GB more storage. The device will have a 3 MP camera mounted on its rear and a VGA secondary camera on front and the users wont have to worry about its storage as the latest Samsung device will feature a 4000 mAh battery which will be enough to serve those who are always on the move.

It is expected that the Galaxy Tab 2 will have both WiFi and 3G variants and there can be another Tab with a 10-inch screen in the pipeline. The device is set to be released globally at the end of Q1 2012 with an initial release in the UK in March.

Let’s hope that it lands in Pakistan soon after its release in England and we get our hands on it for a review.