How Much Money Apple Makes From Google For Every iOS Device It Sells

Apple is getting ~$1 billion per year from Google to make Google the search default on iOS devices, according to a Morgan Stanley report.

Analyst Scott Devitt at Morgan Stanley put Google on his "best ideas" list for investments on Friday, in a report titled, "The Next Google Is Google."

The gist of his bullishness: he believes Google's search business has room for revenue growth and YouTube has an opportunity to generate billions in more sales.

As a part of his look at Google, he dug into the mobile business. He has an estimate of how much Google pays Apple for the right to be the default search engine on iOS devices like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

In the past, some analysts have estimated that Apple has a revenue sharing deal with Google on iOS search. So that for every one dollar of search advertising collected on an iOS gadget, Apple gets 75 cents.

Devitt thinks Apple wouldn't do a revenue sharing deal with Google because it's too messy. He thinks Apple would do a fee per device because it's easier for accounting and it gives Apple upfront payments. It's also a hedge against users going to Google.com and searching from there instead of the default search box on iOS.

Some investors are worried that Google's traffic acquisition cost (TAC) on Apple devices is going to balloon over time. Devitt doesn't think it's going to happen. He believes the TAC will only increase at ~5% per year, and in terms of Google's overall TAC, he thinks it's steady at ~30-35%.

What does that equate to in real dollars? A little under $1 billion this year, steadily rising over the years.

For Apple, $1 billion in pure profit is nice, but it's not much considering the company made $13 billion in profits last quarter.

For Google, it's a pretty good deal. Devitt estimates Google controls 95% of the mobile search market. When you consider that Apple and Android are swallowing the mobile market, paying ~$1 billion a year for a monopoly on the most lucrative online business in the world is a no-brainer.

Here's a table from Devitt breaking down how much he thinks Google pays for total TAC:

Morgan Stanley

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-money-apple-makes-from-google-for-every-ios-device-it-sells-2013-2#ixzz2KWF1hDzm

Steve Jobs Once Gave This Guy A Porsche

And His Career Has Been Golden Ever Since
When Steve Jobs gives you a Porsche at age 23, you know you're destined for a great life.

So it is with Craig Elliott, cofounder and CEO of Pertino, a new Valley startup getting ready to emerge from stealth mode.

The story begins in 1984, when Elliott, now 52, was living in Iowa taking a year off college.

"I ended up working at the local computer retailer and that was the year the Macintosh came out. I sold more Macintoshs than anyone in the United States," Elliott told Business Insider.

So he got a letter from Apple asking him to come to Cupertino, Calif.

"I had dinner with Steve Jobs, spent a week with the Apple executives and Steve gave me a Porsche."

The dinner with Jobs was almost a disaster. During the meal, Jobs asked him how many Macs he had sold. Answer: around 125.

"Jobs was like, 'Oh my god! That's all? That's pathetic!" Elliott recalls. "I leaned over and said, 'Steve, remember, I'm your best guy.' Jobs said, 'Oh, you're right.' And for the rest of the dinner we had a really nice time."

And that was Jobs in a nutshell, Elliott says. He was intense but when people pushed back, that would "reset him."

Jobs offered Elliott a job but Jobs wouldn't be his boss for long. Unknown to both of them, a year later, Jobs would be ousted.

Elliott worked at Apple for a decade, running Apple's Internet and ecommerce business.

The year Jobs returned, Elliott was hired away by networking startup Packeteer to be its CEO. Elliott would take Packeteer public and later, in 2008, sell it for $268 million to Blue Coat Systems.

Elliott retired to New Zealand to "goof off" with his family, he says, and be an an angel investor

That would have been the end of his story, if not for Pertino's cofounder, Scott Hankins. (Hankins is another interesting character. He abandoned a career building robots at NASA to live in the Valley because he thought the tech industry was cooler than space.)

Hankins worked for Elliott at Packeteer as a star engineer and was constantly calling Elliott up in New Zealand pitching startup ideas. Elliott always said no, until he heard about the idea for Pertino. He opened his wallet and came back to the Valley to be CEO.

Pertino will give companies a new way to build networks. Stay tuned for more details when it officially comes out of stealth.

In the meantime, here's a picture of Jobs, the 23-year-old Elliott and the Porsche.

Pertino Steve Jobs gives Craig Elliott a Porsche in 1984 for selling a bunch of Macs

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-story-of-steve-jobs-giving-craig-elliot-a-porsche-2013-2#ixzz2KWDwdh34

Afghan Isaf commander John Allen sees 'road to winning'

The outgoing commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan has said the alliance is on the road to winning the war.

Gen John Allen, who handed over to Gen Joseph Dunford on Sunday, said troops had gone "a long way" towards winning a counter-insurgency.

Gen Allen is set to be nominated as the alliance's supreme commander in Europe.

Last month, he was cleared of misconduct by the Pentagon in a scandal that led former CIA director David Petraeus to resign.

'Not on the table'
"Counter-insurgencies take a while and it is difficult to put a dot on a calendar and say, 'Today, we won'," Gen Allen told the BBC.

"I think we have gone a long way to setting the conditions for what, generally, usually, is the defining factor in winning a counter-insurgency - to set the conditions for governance, to set the conditions for economic opportunity.... I think we are on the road to winning."
During his 19-month tour, Gen Allen managed the transfer of security across much of the country to the Afghan army and police.

His successor is expected to be Isaf's last commander, who will oversee the withdrawal of most of the foreign troops in the country.

Gen Dunford, a Marine like Gen Allen, took over the leadership on Sunday in a ceremony at International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) headquarters in Kabul.

"Today is not about change, it's about continuity," he said. "What has not changed is the will of this coalition."

There has not been any official announcement from the White House as to how many US troops will remain in Afghanistan.

But Gen Allen said that the idea of no American military presence in the country was not an option, and that he had not even been asked to look at its feasibility.

"It's no direction that we intend to go. The president was clear talking about the presence of US forces in this case in the post-2014 period being orientated on training, advising and assisting so that was an indication to me, having not been asked, that the zero option is probably not on the table."

Gen Allen's nomination to head Nato in Europe had been put on hold amid reports that he had sent inappropriate emails to a Florida socialite, in a scandal that brought down the head of the CIA.

But allegations of professional misconduct were dismissed and the then Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said he had "complete confidence" in Gen Allen's leadership.

Read more on BBC

Delhi polls Aam Admi Party's litmus test: Bhushan:

The upcoming Delhi assembly elections will be a litmus test for the
Aam Aadmi Party, before the new political outfit sets its eyes on the
rest of the country, AAP founder-member Prashant Bhushan said today.

AAP will contest the 2013 Delhi legislative assembly elections by
focusing on issues like electricity and water, among others Bhushan
told reporters in Panaji.

He said the party is confident of doing its best in the coming
elections.

Noting that the elections will be a litmus test for the party, Bhushan
said, they would focus on several local issues, including
non-privatisation of electricity and water supply bodies in the
national capital.

The party would also raise the issues of slum colonies, welfare of
rickshaw pullers and unorganised labour, which are affecting the
common people, he said. Bhushan was in Goa to meet Chief Minister
Manohar Parrikar to raise objections on the recently amended Goa
Lokayukta Bill, 2013.

Rediff

Starbucks' new outlet in Delhi

Starbucks opened its first store in India on October 2012.

Expanding its presence in India, Starbucks opened its 7th store in India at New Delhi's Connaught Place on February 6.

Tata Starbucks Ltd. is a 50:50 joint venture company, owned by Starbucks Corporation and Tata Global Beverages.

Starbucks runs 18,000 stores across 60 countries.

Baristas wait behind a coffee stand during the launch of the first Starbucks store in New Delhi.

Starbucks' new outlet in Delhi

Last updated on: February 7, 2013 15:07 IST

Starbucks coffee mugs are seen on display during the launch of the first Starbucks store in New Delhi.

A visitor walks inside a newly launched Starbucks store in New Delhi.

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Baristas wait behind a coffee stand during the launch of the first Starbucks store in New Delhi.

Starbucks' new outlet in Delhi

Last updated on: February 7, 2013 15:07 IST

Coffee mugs featuring the India Gate war memorial are seen on display during the launch of the first Starbucks store in New Delhi.

John Culver (R), President of Starbucks Coffee China and Asia Pacific, speaks with the media as Avani Saglani Davda, CEO of Tata Starbucks Limited, looks on during the launch of the first Starbucks store in New Delhi.

6 tips to be an effective job-seeker

Keeping your CV up-to-date and networking with the right people are just some ways you can land your dream job. Illustrations by Uttam Ghosh

Recently, I have been getting a lot of requests from close friends to keep them updated about new interesting job openings in various companies.

Well that's my job.

Nothing makes me more happy than getting an e-mail from a customer who talks about how he got recruited through TopTalent.in and how glad he is after finding that dream job.

Even though my friends work for the Amazons and Oracles of the world, they are still looking out for challenging opportunities.

Does this mean once you pass out of your college, you are a jobseeker for life?

It seems so. Recent global survey says more than 60 per cent of those who are employed are open to a new job.

In the recruitment industry, we always talk about the "Passive Candidates", the candidates that need tempting and persuading to look at fresh roles.

The thin line between passive and active job-seekers has been diminishing lately.

Being a job-seeker in today's crowded job market is tough.

Frankly, jobseeking is a tough job in itself and that too not a good one.

There cannot be standard rules to help you find your dream job but following few guidelines does make the process easier and effective.

Here are few ways to be an effective passive job-seeker.

Courtesy

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1. Keep your resume updated

Last updated on: February 4, 2013 18:20 IST

So, when was the last time you updated your resume?

It must be before you got this job you are currently in.

Creating and updating your resume is a painful task but yet the most important part of finding the right job.

Most people are either too late to apply or do not apply at all because they don't have an updated resume with them at that time.

Moreover, sending your outdated resume would reduce your chances of getting that job.

Recruiters love nice and crisp one page updated resume.

There is so much you learn and achieve while working at a company, so not updating your resume at a regular interval (every two months) would be naive.

It also helps you understand how you are progressing in your organisation and whether you are really doing something worth writing on a resume.

So pick a date now and update your resume.

Courtesy

2. Be social. Always

Last updated on: February 4, 2013 18:20 IST

In 2012, one in every six people got their job through a social network.

And surprisingly Facebook is leading this trend instead of LinkedIn which is considered the messiah of online recruitment.

If used smartly Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are powerful tools to find a job.

Start by updating your LinkedIn profile. If you don't have a LinkedIn account yet, get one.

Most recruiters would google before shortlisting you for the interview, so make sure you leave a positive online trail.

Change your privacy settings to ensure recruiters do not form an opinion through your Facebook profile.

Connect and stay in touch with your 1st and 2nd degree connections who are working at a company that interests you.

Having more contacts increases the likelihood of finding a job through a social network.

Follow company pages and recruiters on these social networks to know more about the company and any recent openings.

Interact with their posts and strike a conversation by showing "genuine" interest.

Courtesy

3. Participate in alumni groups

Last updated on: February 4, 2013 18:20 IST

Employers get under 7 per cent of all applicants for job openings through referrals but yet this small number accounts for nearly 40 per cent of hires.

Most employees refer their college mates (including seniors and juniors) as they have higher chances of getting recruited.

The reason seems pretty obvious.

College mates have similar background and hence there are higher chances that employers might like them as well.

In India, most premier institutes have an extremely strong and well connected alumni community for this very purpose and everyone is always ready to help (thanks to some referral bonus).

Be an active member of alumni groups especially the job groups. Yes, every institute has one. If not, create one, you would be a legend.

Due to diverse age group of alumni, there would be multiple groups on various platforms as and when they were introduced starting with Yahoo to Google, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Join all the groups and subscribe to weekly updates. Interestingly, even recruiters flock to these alumni groups and post job openings on the group itself.

Also, never miss an opportunity to meet seniors from older batches and given a chance try to take a leadership role in managing the alumni affairs.

It not only looks good on your resume but will give you access to the entire alumni network of your college.

Courtesy

4. Attend events and network

Last updated on: February 4, 2013 18:20 IST

Network! Network! Network!

We are a hyper connected generation. The value of personal connections is immense.

Going out of your way to strike a conversation is tough but extremely valuable.

Whenever you are free, attend events that might be of your professional interest.

Now these events can be within your industry or even some fun events like Start-up Weekends or ThinkFest.

When you attend these events make sure you interact with atleast 50 people.

You don't want to be the one sitting alone or just listening to a speaker the whole time, trust me.

A lot of influential people including CEOs, CXOs, VPs attend these events, so don't be afraid to strike a conversation.

Once you end the conversation ask them for their business cards. Do share your business card as well.

After the event gets over connect with every person you met on LinkedIn or Twitter and send them a message saying how great it was to meet them.

If you do it regularly, it would eventually become a habit and all this would come naturally to you.

Courtesy

5. Subscribe to job newsletters

Last updated on: February 4, 2013 18:20 IST

Yes, this is a tricky one.

This is what leads to spam and frustration.

It's not necessary to subscribe to every job newsletter under the sun but only the ones which are relevant to your profile and match your expectations.

Whichever you subscribe to ensure you get weekly newsletters instead of daily ones.

Join specific groups on LinkedIn which are related to your industry where recruiters generally post their job openings.

Bookmark these e-mails when you receive them and set a day to go through them in your spare time.

Weekends usually work best.

If you are from a premier institute in India, we would be glad to have you.

We HATE spam as much as you do.

Courtesy

6. Help others with referrals

Last updated on: February 4, 2013 18:20 IST

Good karma helps.

As I said before there is no greater joy than helping someone find the right job which not only supports them but their entire family.

Whenever there is a job opening in your company make sure you spread the word within your alumni community or your network.

Once you get some applications make sure you forward it to the right department and keep them updated about the status of the application.

This way you are not only helping your company and your friends but most importantly you are helping yourself gain some goodwill, respect and a referral bonus.

If you help others, it will all come back to you at some point in life when you start looking for job opportunities.

Courtesy

SLR

India: six great hidden gems by train

Monisha Rajesh, author of Around India in 80 Trains, spent four months travelling the country's railways. Here she selects six great places to visit by train, from idyllic hill stations to coastal towns, beyond the main tourist hubs





The Neral to Matheran narrow-gauge toy train toy in Maharashtra. Photograph: Dinodia Photos/Alamy

Matheran, Maharashtra


When it comes to hill stations, forget Shimla, Darjeeling and Ooty, and ascend into the arms of Matheran, a walker's paradise hidden among the jungle-topped Sahyadri hills, 80km east of Mumbai. Originally used by the British to escape the Bombay heat, Matheran is vehicle-free and accessible only on foot, on horseback, or by the narrow-gauge toy train which trundles along tiny tracks laid in the dark-red clay. It's still an ideal weekend break from the heat and noise of Mumbai. Take a picnic to Charlotte Lake, view the mountains from Celia Point and head to Nariman Chikki Mart for some local chikki – a sweet made from groundnuts and jaggery. But beware the bold monkeys who bound alongside, viewing you as little more than a mobile tuck shop.

How to get there Matheran has a 40-rupee (50p) entrance fee. Opt to walk along the shaded tracks to the town, where you will spot single flip-flops dotted around the terrain. On your return take the 1½-hour toy train journey from Matheran down to Neral where you can then take a two-hour connection to Mumbai (£2.30 first class, 50p second class). You'll soon see ticketless passengers dangling off the side of the train, losing their flip-flops en route.

Where to stay The Verandah in the Forest (+91 2148 230810, the-verandah-in-the-forest.neemranahotels.com, twin rooms from £40) is a mansion hideaway which sings of colonial times

Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu

Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu. Photograph: Indiapicture/Alamy

A warm, friendly aura pervades Kanyakumari – along with the smell of dried fish. This peaceful town, perfect for an overnight-trip from Kerala, is the southernmost tip of the country where the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea all meet, resulting in a unique marbling of multicoloured sand. Not one for bathers, the sea thrashes the rocky shores and is best observed from the manmade wall which runs along the seafront. On full-moon days the sunset and moonrise occur simultaneously, and on Chitra Pournami (in 2013 it falls on 25 April) when the sun and moon are face to face on the horizon – considered the prime time to witness the phenomenon. On regular days join the scores of people who gather on the beach before dawn waiting for the first crack of light over the sea.

How to get there It's a 2½-hour train ride from Trivandrum to Kanyakumari and the railway station is within walking distance from the seafront

Where to stay Hotel Seaview, (+91 4652 247841, hotelseaview.in, doubles from £40) is modern and family-friendly, with spectacular views of the sea

Orchha, Madhya Pradesh

Chhatris Bundela, Orchha, Madhya Pradesh. Photograph: Realimage/Alamy

Once home to the Bundela rajas, this pocket of serenity in Madhya Pradesh is made up of little more than a few dusty crossroads, a tumbling river filled with kids diving off the bridge, and the sound of the Hanuman temple's bells ringing in the distance. Most people drive past Orchha on their way to the infamous temples at Khajuraho but have no idea what they are missing, so stop off for a night or two. The Bundela palace looks like a lonely, run-down version of the City Palace in Udaipur and visitors are free to roam the grounds, filled with broken shrines containing the remnants of frescoes on the insides. Miles of emerald forest carpet the surrounding land with tips of turrets poking up from below.

How to get there Take the New Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi Express from Delhi to Jhansi junction (4¾ hours) and then a taxi or auto rickshaw ride for the next 10 miles to Orchha

Where to stay Shri Mahant Guesthouse (+91 7680 252715, doubles from £6) on the steps of the Ram Raja temple is a budget, backpacker-friendly guesthouse with a terrace overlooking the marketplace

Diu Island

Tribal women carrying firewood to the markets of Diu. Photograph: imagebroker/Alamy

The island of Diu is an ex-Portuguese territory just off the southern coast of Gujarat. It looks like the set of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical where houses are painted the colours of sugared almonds, under a china-blue sky chalk-marked with wisps of cloud. As Gujarat is a dry state, and Diu part of a union territory, it's used by many Gujaratis, much in the way that the English use Ibiza – to go and get hammered. For others looking for a week to unwind, it's a sleepy town with clean, empty beaches where peacocks fly from roof to roof and the remnants of its Christian settlers are still visible in the form of its Catholic churches: St Paul's where mass is still celebrated daily; St Francis of Assisi now partly used as a hospital; and St Thomas's which is now run by the D'Souza family, and contains a converted museum with guest rooms built into the back. The guesthouse is past its prime, but the family still hosts weekly barbecues with rockfish and calamari a speciality. For around £2.50 thrifty backpackers are welcome to sleep on the roof of the church – the highest point in Diu – which offers a spine-tingling romantic view over the ocean.

How to get there Take the overnight Somnath Express from Ahmedabad to Veraval then a local three-hour train to Una. An auto rickshaw will take you across the bridge to the island

Where to stay Genuine shabby chic, but brimming with character. Hotel São Tomé Retiro (+91 2875 253137) housed in St Thomas's Church, or for a few more creature comforts such as air conditioning, cable TV and a bar, try the centrally located Hotel Samrat(+91 2875 252354,hotelsamratdiu.com, doubles from £17)
Dwarka, Gujarat

Dwarka, Gujarat. Photograph: Francis Leroy/Hemis/Corbis

One of the westernmost points of the country, the coastal town of Dwarka is known as one of the four dhams, or abodes of the gods, and is thought to be the home of Lord Krishna. The Dwarkadhish temple on the banks of the Gomati river draws pilgrims from all over India and is one of the few temples to allow in non-Hindus even though western tourists are a rare sight in this part of the country. Most travellers thread through Gujarat to see the Asiatic lions in Sasan Gir, but it's worth making the 10-hour train journey from Ahmedabad just to watch the evening puja – when the deity is worshipped – and sit on the sandy banks as the sun comes down, the waves lick at the edges of saris and camels carry squealing newlyweds across the shore.

How to get there: Take the Saurashtra Mail from Ahmedabad to Dwarka (9hrs 40mins, general class £1.20, first class £16)

Where to stay Hotel Shree Darshan (+91 2892 235 034,hoteldarshandwarka.com, doubles from £15) is an excellent, value for money budget hotel with 24-hour room service

Gangtok, Sikkim

View of Kanchenjunga from Tashi viewpoint, Gangtok, Sikkim. Photograph: Robert Harding World Imagery/Alamy

Trimmed with prayer flags, and stacked with multi-levelled hotels and shops built up its steep ridges, the Buddhist-dominated capital of the northeastern state of Sikkim is just right for a two-day stopover before trekking further into the state. With its Swiss levels of cleanliness and lung-cleansing air it makes for a wonderful getaway. Uneven staircases cut into the ridges lead to curtain-covered shops and cafes; if you have a few hours to spare step into cosy Rachna Books which often hosts evenings of folk music and film screenings. However, the town's true allure lies with Kanchenjunga, the world's third highest mountain. Take a taxi to Tashi view point before dawn when the sun hits the eastern face, turning the peak to a golden pink hue.

How to get there All foreign nationals must obtain a 15-day permit to enter Sikkim, which is free and issued on the spot at Indian embassies, by immigration officers at major airports, or at the bus station in Siliguri – a junction town connecting the northeast with the rest of India. Take a shared jeep or a bus from the SNT terminal on Hill Cart Road in Siliguri

Where to stay The Golden Pagoda (+91 3592 206928,hotelgoldenpagoda.com, doubles from £15) has small musty rooms but sits bang on the main street and organises trips to Tashi view point. Ask for a room at the back of the hotel where you can pull open the curtains in the morning and be greeted by Kanchenjunga gleaming in the sunshine.


• Around India in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh is published by Nicholas Brealey, £10.99.

guardian

Planning your own Indian odyssey

Where to start

Booking train tickets from outside India has recently become more awkward, with the need for an Indian mobile phone number to be entered when making reservations, although there are ways around this. The Man in Seat Sixty-One (seat61.com) offers an excellent, up-to-date guide to the ticketing bureaucracy, costs and classes. But the best bet is to visit Shankar Dandapani, the British representative for Indian Railways (indiarail.co.uk), at his Wembley office, where he can help you to plan routes, book journeys and provide you with a prepaid Indrail pass if you plan on taking a number of trains. Other useful sites include indiarailinfo.com and cleartrip.com, which charges a small fee to book tickets, but accepts all foreign credit cards.

Possible routes

Indian Railways has something for every kind of person, time-frame and budget. If you’re pushed for time, start in Mumbai and travel down to Mangalore via the Konkan railway – a 475-mile stretch with the Arabian Sea on one side and the Sahyadri Hills on the other. Then take the Yeshvantpur Express through the lush green Western Ghats to Bangalore, one of the most scenic routes on the entire network – particularly through Sakleshpur and Hassan – filled with waterfalls, coconut groves and bridges. If you want to travel in grand style, try the seven-night Pride of the South tour on the Golden Chariot (thegoldenchariot.co.in), which starts in Bangalore and weaves through Mysore, Kabini National Park, Badami and the World Heritage Site at Hampi to Vasco da Gama in Goa.



How does it all work?

The booking system opens locally 120 days in advance of a journey, so plan for long journeys and overnight trips. However, it is fine to turn up at the station for short hops and local passenger trains. Most major cities have a foreign tourist desk, where you can take advantage of the foreign tourist quota on certain journeys, and female travellers can go to the ladies-only counters for faster service.

There are eight classes, from first class air-conditioned to general unreserved, so work out which suits your needs and budget. There is also a “tatkal” – meaning “immediate” – system for last-minute travel, under which a handful of tickets is released at 10am the day before a train is due to depart.

What’s the food like?

Meals are included in the fare on Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto trains, while Indian Railways catering staff come around to take orders on other trains soon after departure, returning to collect payment and tips after you’re finished. If you’re jumping out at stations to eat the platform snacks, eat freshly cooked hot food and drink bottled water such as Aquafina or Kinley. Keep a stock of apples, biscuits and banana chips in case it’s a while before the next stop.

Dos and don’ts

Be courteous to your companions and follow the rules for putting down berths and switching off lights at 9pm. Take phone calls in the vestibule and keep noise to a minimum. Others may not observe this, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.

Don’t throw your rubbish in the bin under the sink – it just gets flung out of the door later. Keep it tied up and take it when you get off.

Women travelling alone on overnight services should book into AC3tier and above and choose an upper berth to be out of reach of wandering hands.

Claustrophobics won’t enjoy the upper berth of the AC3tier compartment as the distance between your nose and the ceiling isn’t huge. The same goes for the side upper berth, which is ever so slightly narrower than the others. Its three closed sides and drawn curtain give the feeling of sleeping in a moving coffin.

Around India in 80 trains

Monisha Rajesh introduces her new book, which recounts an epic four-month journey on India's railways, and offers advice for travellers planning their own trip.

A thud had barely brought the train to a standstill when satchels and carrier bags were posted through the barred windows, their owners attempting to save seats. A baby wearing eyeliner and a look of shock was passed to me through the emergency-exit window before her parents bolted the length of the carriage and shoved through the door amid a cacophony of yelps and yelling. After 12 weeks and 63 train journeys, I had learnt that this was standard procedure.


Four months earlier I had been at my desk in London reading an article about how India’s domestic airlines could now reach 80 cities. Curious, I pored over a map: the reach was impressive, but nowhere near as great as that of the railway network, which rippled out across the country, embroidering the edges of its landmass. Twenty years ago I had lived briefly in Madras, now Chennai, but had barely stretched a toe beyond its borders. I had always wanted to return to see India in all its glory.


Indian Railways, known as the “Lifeline of the Nation”, carries more than 20 million passengers a day along 64,000 km (40,000 miles) of track, its trains thundering through towns, inching past villages, climbing mountains and hugging coastlines. Riding those trains up, down and across India would, I hoped, enable me to lift the veil on a country that had become a stranger to me. Stringent planning was out of the question, lending itself neither to adventure nor spontaneity. I convinced a photographer friend of a friend to join me on the venture and nicknamed him Passepartout in homage to Phileas Fogg’s long-suffering companion, then bought a 90-day IndRail pass, made a handful of reservations, and constructed a rough outline of the route around events, beautiful sections of the railways, and trains renowned for good food.


Beyond that, I relied on serendipity, which threw up some wonderful escapades and fortuitous meetings. When we found our berths had been double-booked on an overnight trip from Pune to Delhi, Passepartout slept in a linen cupboard, much to the amusement of two children who tumbled through the doorway looking for the Crazy White Man in the Cupboard. And a chance encounter with an Indian MP, on a 28-hour journey from Delhi to Chennai, led to an invitation to visit Tinsukia, in Assam, where the welcome included armoured jeeps, police escorts and guided tours around tea estates and collieries.



The journey began in my old home of Chennai. I boarded the 14-hour Anantapuri Express to Nagercoil, a short hop from Kanyakumari – the southernmost point of India, where the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal all meet. After witnessing a total solar eclipse from its rocky shores, I threaded up the glorious Konkan coast, hanging out of the doors of the Mandovi Express as it sailed across the Panval Nadi Viaduct – the highest in India – the sea shifting quietly below, before sipping Bombay Sapphire on the Indian Maharaja Deccan Odyssey and spotting tigers fight in Ranthambore, tackling Mumbai’s local trains at rush hour, visiting the world’s first hospital train in Madhya Pradesh, and wedging myself into luggage racks on trains to Dwarka, Udhampur and Ledo, the western, northern and easternmost tips of the network.

Within the first few days, I realised that an Indian train ticket is a permit to trespass on the intimacies of other people’s lives. What would have been improprieties elsewhere become instantly acceptable on a train: tearing strips of roti proffered by a man I had known for 10 minutes; reading in bed while eyeing a dishevelled stranger muttering in his sleep; eavesdropping on young lovers’ disputes; or gatecrashing the celebrations of pilgrims and wedding parties, clapping and singing along as their gifts of glass bangles slid down my arms. Suddenly my destination would rap at the window, rudely interrupting and bringing a curtain call on the show.



I soon learnt some tricks of the trade. On several journeys the train halted in between stations and, after 20 minutes or so, jerked and carried on while passengers remained nonplussed, playing cards or chatting in the vestibules. Wondering what was causing the unscheduled stops, I questioned a fellow passenger, who explained that the label on the emergency handle saying PULL HANDLE TO STOP was often taken quite literally. Passengers passing through their villages would yank the handle, jump off and skip across the tracks to their homes. “There are so many people on the train,” he said, “by the time the conductor has reached the carriage, who knows who pulled what?”

Inevitably, after almost four months constantly on the move, a part of me did begin to go a little crazy. I had spent more nights contorted in a rocking berth than I had stretched out on a stationary bed. My back was filled with knots and the May heat was making me irrational and snappy.

Contrary to the romanticised descriptions of India’s smell of sweet chai and spices, the honking of horns, the stench of sandalwood and sewers, and the close proximity of sweating skin began to batter my senses, but one remedy that always worked to counter the situation was to squat on the steps of the doorways, watching the sun go down. Most trains travel so slowly that passengers regularly loop arms through the hand holds, invigorated by the blast of warm air, or perch on the steps with a battered paperback. Watching sunsets as the train rolled through the countryside became a daily ritual, the sun turning orange, darkening to a deep pink, then slowly sliding away, leaving cracks of soft light lingering in the sky.

For many, Indian Railways provides little more than a mode of transport: a cheap and convenient way to commute, visit relatives or simply while away the day. For others, it is a place of employment where generations have earned their livelihood. But after 80 journeys, 25,000 miles and a thousand cups of tea, I realised that it really is the bloodstream that keeps India’s heart beating.

Telegraph

Dalrymple, Rushdie Top Authors' Reading List in 2012

When leading authors like Aravind Adiga, Jeet Thayil and Amit Chaudhuri were not writing in 2012, they were reading a lot- be it works of Naresh Fernandes, William Dalrymple or Anjali Joseph.

Mumbai-based journalist Fernandes' book Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age topped the reading list of both 2008 Booker Prize winner Adiga and this year's Booker-nominated writer Thayil.

Dalrymple himself liked reading Pankaj Mishra's From the Ruins of Empire, Monisha Rajesh's Around India in 80 Trains, Salman Rushdie's Joseph Anton, Kate Boo's Beyond the Beautiful Forever and John Zubrzycki's The Mysterious Mr Jacob.

According to Adiga, Taj Mahal Foxtrot is a "loving and scholarly tribute to India's pioneering jazz musicians, and the city that they lived and worked in". Two other books he liked were Mustansir Dalvi's new translation of the poetry of Iqbal Taking Issue and Allah's Answer and Gopalakrishna Pai's Kannada novelSwapna Saraswata.

"Dalvi's translation introduces Iqbal to a new generation of Indian readers. Well written and superbly researched, Swapna Saraswata is the story of how Goa's Saraswat community spread across south India after being forced to leave their homeland during Portuguese rule. It has gone into several reprints in Karnataka, and will be a hit across India if it finds a good translator," Adiga told PTI.

Asked about his top reads during the year, Thayil's list went thus: Taj Mahal Foxtrot, Righteous Republic by Ananya Vajpeyi, Return of a King by Dalrymple,Dom Moraes: Selected Poems (edited by Ranjit Hoskote), The Wildings by Nilanjana Roy, and Drifting House by Krys Lee.

Chaudhuri named Joseph's Another Country, Palash Mehrotra's The Butterfly Generation and Anand Thakore's Elephant Bathing as his top reads.

"Another Country is a brief, poetic novel about the attrition caused by, and the inadvertent but radiant surplus gained from, aimless drift. Its subtlety and skill, and the instinct for beauty that marked Joseph's first novel, confirm her unusual and immense talent. The Butterfly Generation is a collection of musings on the young of the 'new India', and the writing is terse and - having originated as journalism - written at considerable speed.

"But it would be a pity if readers didn't pause to notice Mehrotra's great humour and insight, and his visionary impulse - the impulse of one who's aware of inhabiting a cusp in a country's history, and is caught between studying and merging with the effervescent, amoral landscape he's describing. Thakore's second book of poems, Elephant Bathing, is hugely pleasurable for its formal accomplishment, its wry cosmopolitanism, and for the poised way it carries, and is animated by, the painful stamp of human personality," writer-academic Chaudhuri told.

Diplomat Vikas Swarup, whose novel Q&A was adapted into the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, liked reading Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, which is "not just a biography of cancer but a literary mystery about the excitement and thrill of scientific discovery".

Anita Nair, the author of The Better Man, Ladies Coupe, Mistress and Lessons in Forgetting listed The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt and The Book of Barbosa by Duartes Barbosa as her top three reads for the year.

Jahnavi Barua, whose novel Rebirth was nominated for the 2012 Commonwealth Prize and Man Asian Booker Prize in 2011, liked Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka's multiple-award winning Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole's Open City and Janice Pariat's collection of stories Boats on Land.

Jerry Pinto, writer of Em and the Big Hoom, enjoyed Eunice de Souza and Melanie Silgardo's voluminous and brave collection of poems These My Words: The Penguin Book of Indian Poetry.

"It was lovely to see, within one set of covers, voices from all four corners of the subcontinent and from all strata of society," he says.

Thriller fiction writer Ashwin Sanghi liked Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan by Dalrymple and Brian Weiss' Miracles Happen: The Transformational Healing Power of Past Life Memories.

Delhi-based German author Roswitha Joshi enjoyed reading Lucknow Boy by Vinod Mehta, Durbar by Tavleen Singh and Get to the Top by Suhel Seth.

"All of them are very informative and written in a spunky style, spiced up by personal anecdotes that not only say a lot about events and the personalities involved in them but the authors and their mental make-up as well. After my recent trip to Egypt I cannot put down a book called River God written by Wilbur Smith, which had been lying for ages unread in a shelf because I could not gel with an over 600 pages long story set in ancient Egypt," she says.

Outlook

Brazil to give $25 monthly culture stipend to workers to go to movies, read books or visit museums

Despite the economic crisis, Brazil announced Thursday it planned to give workers here a 50-real ($25) monthly stipend for cultural expenses like movies, books or museums. "In all developed countries, culture plays a key role in the economy," Culture Minister Marta Suplicy said in an interview on national television. She recalled that popular former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva created "Bolsa Familia" (Family Grant), the program of conditional cash transfers to the poor which his successor, President Dilma Rousseff, expanded. "Now we are creating food for the soul; Why would the poor not be able to access culture?" the minister said. Suplicy said the new incentive, approved by Congress and endorsed by Rousseff late last month, is expected to be introduced some time this year. "The money will be put in the hands of the worker who will decide how to spend it, by going to the movies, to the theater, to an exhibition or the museum," she explained. Other possible uses include purchases of books, music or DVDs. The "Culture Stipend" will be paid through an electronic card, with employers deciding whether to extend the benefit to workers earning up to five times the minimum wages (up to $1,700 a month.) Employers will cover 90 percent of the cost of the stipend but can then deduct the amount from their income tax. Workers will pay the remaining 10 percent, but can opt out if they choose to do so. "There are many Brazilians, 17 million, who today earn up to five minimum wages, which could potentially means an injection of $3.5 billion in the cultural sector," Suplicy said in an editorial published in the Folha de Sao Paulo this week.

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John E. Karlin, Who Led the Way to All-Digit Dialing, Dies at 94

A generation ago, when the poetry of Pennsylvania and Butterfield was about to give way to telephone numbers in unpoetic strings, a critical question arose: Would people be able to remember all seven digits long enough to dial them?

And when, not long afterward, the dial gave way to push buttons, new questions arose: round buttons, or square? How big should they be? Most crucially, how should they be arrayed? In a circle? A rectangle? An arc?

For decades after World War II, these questions were studied by a group of social scientists and engineers in New Jersey led by one man, a Bell Labs industrial psychologist named John E. Karlin.

By all accounts a modest man despite his variegated accomplishments (he had a doctorate in mathematical psychology, was trained in electrical engineering and had been a professional violinist), Mr. Karlin, who died on Jan. 28, at 94, was virtually unknown to the general public.

But his research, along with that of his subordinates, quietly yet emphatically defined the experience of using the telephone in the mid-20th century and afterward, from ushering in all-digit dialing to casting the shape of the keypad on touch-tone phones. And that keypad, in turn, would inform the design of a spate of other everyday objects.

It is not so much that Mr. Karlin trained midcentury Americans how to use the telephone. It is, rather, that by studying the psychological capabilities and limitations of ordinary people, he trained the telephone, then a rapidly proliferating but still fairly novel technology, to assume optimal form for use by midcentury Americans.

“He was the one who introduced the notion that behavioral sciences could answer some questions about telephone design,” Ed Israelski, an engineer who worked under Mr. Karlin at Bell Labs in the 1970s, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

In 2013, the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the touch-tone phone, the answers to those questions remain palpable at the press of a button. The rectangular design of the keypad, the shape of its buttons and the position of the numbers — with “1-2-3” on the top row instead of the bottom, as on a calculator — all sprang from empirical research conducted or overseen by Mr. Karlin.

The legacy of that research now extends far beyond the telephone: the keypad design Mr. Karlin shepherded into being has become the international standard on objects as diverse as A.T.M.’s, gas pumps, door locks, vending machines and medical equipment.

Mr. Karlin, associated from 1945 until his retirement in 1977 with Bell Labs, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., was widely considered the father of human-factors engineering in American industry.

A branch of industrial psychology that combines experimentation, engineering and product design, human-factors engineering is concerned with easing the awkward, often ill-considered marriage between man and machine. In seeking to design and improve technology based on what its users are mentally capable of, the discipline is the cognitive counterpart of ergonomics.

“Human-factors studies are different from market research and other kinds of studies in that we observe people’s behavior and record it, systematically and without bias,” Mr. Israelski said. “The hallmark of human-factors studies is they involve the actual observation of people doing things.”

Among the issues Mr. Karlin examined as the head of Bell Labs’ Human Factors Engineering department — the first department of its kind at an American company — were the optimal length for a phone cord (a study that involved gentle, successful sabotage) and the means by which rotary calls could be made efficiently after the numbers were moved from inside the finger holes, where they had nestled companionably for years, to the rim outside the dial.

John Elias Karlin was born in Johannesburg on Feb. 28, 1918, and reared nearby in Germiston, where his parents owned a grocery store and tearoom.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, psychology and music, and a master’s degree in psychology, both from the University of Cape Town. Throughout his studies he was a violinist in the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra and the Cape Town String Quartet.

Moving to the United States, Mr. Karlin earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1942. Afterward, he became a research associate at Harvard; he also studied electrical engineering there and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

At Harvard, Mr. Karlin did research for the United States military on problems in psychoacoustics that were vital to the war effort — studying the ways, for instance, in which a bomber’s engine noise might distract its crew from their duties.

In 1945 he joined Bell Labs, then the jointly owned research and development arm of the American Telephone & Telegraph and Western Electric Companies. (It is now owned by Alcatel-Lucent.) The first research psychologist on the labs’ staff, Mr. Karlin spent his early years there working on problems in telephone acoustics.



Before long, he later said, he realized that the dynamics of using a telephone involved far more than speaking and hearing. In 1947 he persuaded Bell Labs to create a unit, originally called the User Preference department and later Human Factors Engineering, to study these larger questions; Mr. Karlin became its head in 1951.

An early experiment involved the telephone cord. In the postwar years, the copper used inside the cords remained scarce. Telephone company executives wondered whether the standard cord, then about three feet long, might be shortened. Mr. Karlin’s staff stole into colleagues’ offices every three days and covertly shortened their phone cords, an inch at time. No one noticed, they found, until the cords had lost an entire foot.

From then on, phones came with shorter cords.

Mr. Karlin also introduced the white dot inside each finger hole that was a fixture of rotary phones in later years. After the phone was redesigned at midcentury, with the letters and numbers moved outside the finger holes, users, to AT&T’s bewilderment, could no longer dial as quickly.

With blank space at the center of the holes, Mr. Karlin found, callers no longer had a target at which to aim their fingers. The dot restored the speed.

Mr. Karlin’s biggest challenge was almost certainly the advent of the push-button phone, officially introduced on Nov. 18, 1963, in two Pennsylvania communities, Carnegie and Greensburg.

In 1946, a Bell Labs engineer, Rudolph F. Mallina, had patented an early model, with buttons arranged in two horizontal rows: 1 through 5 on top, 6 through 0 below. It was never marketed.

By the late 1950s, when touch-tone dialing — much faster than rotary — seemed an inevitability, Mr. Karlin’s group began to study what form the phone of the future should take. Keypad configurations examined included Mr. Mallina’s, one with buttons in a circle, another with buttons in an arc, and a rectangular pad.

The victorious design, based on the group’s studies of speed, accuracy and users’ own preferences, used keys half an inch square. The keypad itself was rectangular, comprising 10 keys: a 3-by-3 grid spanning 1 through 9, plus zero, centered below. Today’s omnipresent 12-button keypad, with star and pound keys flanking the zero, grew directly from this model.

Putting “1-2-3” on the pad’s top row instead of the bottom (the configuration used, then as now, on adding machines and calculators) was also born of Mr. Karlin’s group: they found it made for more accurate dialing.

Mr. Karlin’s first marriage, to Jane Daggett, ended in divorce. Survivors include his second wife, the former Susan Leigh, whom he married in 1963; a daughter from his first marriage, Bonnie Farber; three stepchildren, Christopher, Stuart and Susan Leigh, who confirmed her stepfather’s death, at his home in Little Silver, N.J.; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. A son from Mr. Karlin’s first marriage, Christopher Karlin, died in 1968.

Throughout his career, Mr. Karlin was happy to work out of the limelight, a stance doubtless reinforced by this cautionary tale of all-digit dialing:

By the postwar period, telephone exchanges that spelled pronounceable words were starting to be exhausted. All-digit dialing would create a cache of new phone numbers, but whether users could memorize the seven digits it entailed was an open question.

Mr. Karlin’s experimental research, reported in the popular press, showed that they could. As a result, PEnnsylvania and BUtterfield — the stuff of song and story — began to slip away. By the 1960s, those exchanges, along with DRexel, FLeetwood, SWinburne and scores of others just as evocative, had all but disappeared.

This did not please traditionalists, and thanks to the papers they knew the culprit’s name.

“One day I was at a cocktail party and I saw some people over in the corner,” Mr. Karlin recalled in a 2003 lecture. “They were obviously looking at me and talking about me. Finally a lady from this group came over and said, ‘Are you the John Karlin who is responsible for all-number dialing?’ ”

Mr. Karlin drew himself up with quiet pride.

“Yes, I am,” he replied.

“How does it feel,” his inquisitor asked, “to be the most hated man in America?”